Medical Crisis
by J01211
Summary: Amy gets permanently injured and Sonic feels very guilty about it. Chapter 15 is up now, I'm starting on 16.
1. A Stressful Date

Medical Crisis

Author's Note: This story takes place some time after Sonic Adventure 2. Also, the second chapter may be somewhat graphic. This first chapter wasn't designed to express any angst, so you may want to at least read the next chapter for that. Now on to the story!

Chapter 1: A Stressful Date

It was a nice clear night in Station Square and the weather couldn't be better. But not everything was peaceful in the city because a certain car was driving down the highway with a rather stressed out driver. A certain blue hedgehog was at the wheel with a pink one sitting in the seat next to him.

"You know Sonic." Amy said with a gleeful tone, "I think we should go out again tomorrow. We've had so much fun that I'm still excited."

Sonic didn't look very excited, in fact his eye was twitching and looked like he was about to pop a vein. At first their date was fun indeed, they visited an amusement park and decided to spend their date there. 

Flashback to earlier that afternoon:

"Wow! Cool! Let's spend our date here." Amy was very cheerful when she and Sonic drove by the amusement park. Sonic however wasn't so cheerful. Amy's constant rude appearances throughout his recent life and her annoying conversations were enough to drive anyone mad, let alone a hedgehog with a short temper. "All right Amy," Sonic said with some disgust in his voice, "let's get this over with."

Station Square's "Mega Amusement Park" was one of the largest amusement parks in the whole country. It had over fifty rides, hundreds of gaming booths, dozens of restaurants, and a three story arcade the size of a large warehouse. 

"Well, let's at least go on all of the rides," Amy said cheerfully, "after all, we may not get another chance to come here anytime soon." She saw a nearby clock and it read 3 o'clock in the afternoon. "You see Sonic, we have plenty of time."

Sonic decided to loosen up for a change. Since he isn't really here for the date, he could at least try the rides and have fun. At least Amy didn't choose some boring stage plays or operas like in their past dates. Sonic and Amy went on many rides and nearly threw up several times, especially on the large ones. They ate at a couple restaurants, and played in the arcade for a few hours to recover from the rides. 

Sonic was starting to get a headache from staring at the arcade screens, but noticed that Amy was still enjoying herself. He looked at the clock on a wall and noticed it was now 9 o'clock in the evening. Sonic then looked through the amusement park brochure and checked the map. He then came to startling realization. They've been here for six long hours and they haven't even been on half of the rides! Now his headache is getting much worse and he definitely felt like going home now. 

"Uh, Amy," Sonic said while rubbing his temples, "I think we've been here long enough. We should go home now."

Amy just had another "game over" and was out of quarters. She's not very good with arcade games, but she seems to have fun anyways. "You know, I think you're right, I'm feeling a bit tired myself. But before we leave, I want to try one more ride."

Sonic gave a frustrated sigh. "All right Amy, which one?"

Amy pointed at a particularly large roller coaster on the brochure. Heck, it was the largest one in the entire amusement park and was appropriately named "The Giant of Station Square" or "G.O.S.S." for short. Sonic seemed rather worried, since he's never been on a roller coaster anywhere near this big. It had a 295-foot drop, had countless loops and twists, and the ride lasts for nearly ten minutes! But if this will get him home and finally away from Amy, he was willing to force himself despite his throbbing headache.

After more than half an hour of waiting in line, they finally got on the ride, and after the long ride was done, they each had different reactions. Amy was hollering with excitement and was very happy, Sonic would also be very excited if it weren't for his headache. His head now felt like small bombs were detonating inside and he once again started rubbing his head.

Amy noticed that he was rubbing his head very hard. "Hey Sonic, why are you rubbing your head like that?"

"Well, duh! I've got a splitting headache!" Sonic sounded very irritated, "why else do you think I'm rubbing my head?"

"Well I thought that you're just clearing your mind or something," she replied with some concern in her voice, "if you would have told me earlier, we could have gone home. After all, I don't want to see you like this, it hurts me just as much to see you like this."

Sonic couldn't believe what he just heard. They could have left this place a long time ago! "How could she have NOT known that I'm in pain," Sonic thought angrily, "is she really that dumb, or she always off in her own world?" Sonic was now on the verge of losing his temper, big time.

"Come on Amy, let's go now. When I get home, I'm going to swallow a couple bottles of aspirin and hopefully that'll be enough to stop my torturous headache." Sonic just barely walked a few steps and noticed that Amy wasn't following him. 

Sonic walked back to Amy and practically yelled at her. "Now what!? What are you doing? Didn't you agree to leave now?" She didn't answer and Sonic noticed that Amy was bending over slightly and clutching her belly. Sonic's anger dropped slightly and started to feel concerned for her. 

"If this is some trick to make me feel sorry for you, it's not going to work," Sonic said, but she still didn't answer or move. 

Sonic finally got fed up with the situation and decided to shake some sense into her. But before he touched her, he heard Amy groaning and noticed something wrong with her face. He grabbed her and noticed that her pink face has almost turned green.

"Amy! Are you all right? What's happening?" Sonic now sounded more worried than angry and he knew that this was no trick.

"Sonic, I...b...b...BLEEEEEEH!" She threw up all over Sonic's face and half of his body! Sonic was totally shocked by what just happened. 

He suddenly became so furious that the vomit covering his face and body started to sizzle. "Why.... you.... little.... piece of -."

"I-I'm so sorry Sonic," Amy tried her very best to apologize, "I didn't know that this would happen. I guess the G.O.S.S. had a bigger affect on me than I thought. After all, I -." 

She began to feel another urge to throw up and Sonic quickly let go of her. She put her hands over her mouth and her cheeks started to puff out. She looked around and found a trashcan nearby and ran to it. She then threw up the rest of her "contents" into the trashcan and slowly walked back to Sonic, who looked like he was about to blow up.

"Um, Sonic, I think that we should clean up before we leave." She then walked to the ladies room to clean up. Sonic however just stood where he was like a statue. He refused to except what just happened, it was like a nightmare. 

Sonic then looked around and noticed that everyone was staring. A few were rude enough to laugh and point. "What's the matter with all of you!? Have you ever seen a blue and BROWN hedgehog?" Sonic finally proceeded to the men's room while everyone around him started plugging their noses from the stench of the vomit covering him. As soon as he entered the men's room, everyone inside evacuated and ran out, also holding their noses. Sonic had nearly caused a stampede just by walking into a restroom! He has never been so humiliated in his whole life.

Flashback to the present:

Sonic started grinding his teeth together so hard, it seemed that they would break.

"You know Sonic," Amy said, totally oblivious to Sonic's current emotions, "it was really nice that person at the booth gave you some aspirin for you headache. This date was definitely unusual, but I've had more fun than any of our other dates. Didn't you enjoy yourself Sonic?"

Sonic was so silent that Amy didn't think anyone was driving. She looked at Sonic, "hello? Sonic, did you hear what I just said? You know it's rude to ignore someone who's talking to you. I'm not distracting your driving am I?"

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaagh," Sonic screamed so loud that the windows of their car nearly shattered. Immediately he pulled the handbrake and the car came to a screeching stop. 

Amy had a very shocked look on her face. "Sonic! Are you crazy? What're you doing, we're in the middle of a highway!" Sonic gave her no answer, yet.

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Well, I hope you like this chapter because the next chapter isn't going to be so humorous. Chapter 1 is like a prologue to set the stage for the story and to give the events of the rest of the story a better appreciation. Chapter 2 is where the real story begins. This fic isn't called "Medical Crisis" for nothing.


	2. The Crash Scene

Author's note: I'm not one to use cuss words, it's just not in my nature. So I will do my best to express feelings without using cuss words. Also, this chapter is rather graphic, but very necessary for the atmosphere of this fic. This fic has angst you know.

Chapter 2: The Crash Scene

The highway started getting foggy and visibility was getting worse. Normally in this situation, you're supposed to drive very carefully and more slowly to decrease the chances of an accident. However in this scene, a very stupid thing is being done. A car is parked right in the middle of the highway! The traffic is very light, but that could still be dangerous in this case.

"Sonic! What do you think you're doing?" Amy was very hysterical while Sonic just crossed his arms and was totally silent. His face had a look of extreme stress and veins were popping out all over. "Sonic, if this is some kind of sick joke, stop it! This is very dangerous!" Sonic clenched his fist so hard that his knuckles were cracking.

"Shut up! Just shut up!" Sonic had finally lost control of himself. "I've had about enough of that huge, noisy cavern in your face!" Sonic quickly unbuckled his safety belt and stumbled out of the car. As soon as he got out, a passing car swerved around their illegally parked car and nearly hit him. (Parking in the middle of a highway is illegal you know, duh!) 

"Hey, get off the highway you road hog," the passing driver said angrily, "go learn how to drive." The passing car disappeared into the fog. "That's hedgehog, you dolt!" Sonic yelled while waving his fist furiously. "I'm out of here Amy! Go drive yourself home." (Amy does know how to drive you know).

Sonic speeds off down the highway, nearly hitting another car, which the driver also threw an insult at him. Sonic ignored the insult this time because his priority now was to go straight home and get away from Amy. He looked back and barely noticed the headlights of Amy's car through the fog and also noticed that they haven't moved. 

Sonic stood on the curb of the highway to avoid blocking any traffic and starting waiting very impatiently for her car to get moving. After all, he doesn't want to be responsible for causing a car pile-up. Her car still wasn't moving and Sonic was now on the verge of killing Amy himself. 

Sonic ran back to the car and noticed that Amy was still in here seat with her safety belt still on. Her arms were crossed and had a pretty upset look on her face, but nowhere near as upset as Sonic's face. "Amy! Get out of here, you're going to cause a huge accident." Amy decided to give Sonic the silent treatment just like what he did to her earlier. (In case you didn't know, the car is Amy's. Sonic obviously doesn't need one because he's faster than any car, and he doesn't have to deal with traffic).

"I said get out of here! Go, now!" Sonic was getting very frustrated with her attitude and was starting to get nervous because of where they are. Sonic and Amy noticed that the fog was getting thicker by the minute. Luckily there's little traffic, but they're still pressing their luck with the situation.

"No!" Amy said defiantly, "our date isn't finished until I'm at home and I want YOU to take me home." 

Sonic started laughing almost maniacally. "What do you mean our date isn't finished? Our date was over the moment you called me to go out with you!" Amy was shocked by what he said and had a "how could you say that" look on her face.

Sonic continued, "do you know why I was stupid enough to go out with you on this date and our other past dates? I'll tell you why, it's so that I can spend the rest of the week AWAY from you. Every time you call me to go out and I refuse, you just call again the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and so on. So I figured that if I go out with you, you would at least be satisfied and leave me alone for the week, and then I could have the rest of the week WITHOUT you!" Sonic then gave a huge sigh of relief, "ooh, that felt so good. I should have said that a long time ago." 

Amy was shocked much more than any other time in her life, and her face showed it very well. Sonic didn't care though, to him seeing her face like this was priceless and it made him feel so good that his headache nearly disappeared. 

"I.... I.... um.... I.... uh," Amy was totally speechless and was caught completely off guard by those cruel words. She never expected such words to come out of Sonic's own mouth. 

The only thing she could do now is burst into tears and she covered her face with her hands. The very image of the world around her had been shattered by Sonic's "confession." Sonic didn't even give a care, seeing her like this was a dream come true. He always wanted to see her suffer at least once so that she can experience his frustrations towards her. Unfortunately, Sonic is about to get much more that he bargained for. The fog had now become so thick that it was hard to see anything, Sonic and Amy almost felt like they were the only ones left in the world.

Amy finally felt defeated, far too shocked to say anything back. She slowly took her hands off her face to unbuckle her safety belt and move to the drivers seat. But before she touched her safety belt, they heard an ominous noise coming from the very thick fog behind the car. (Keep in mind that the car is NOT parked on the curb, it's right in the middle of the highway!)

Like a phantom jumping out of the fog, Sonic and Amy stared in horror as a huge 18-wheeler truck was coming right at them! (Remember, Sonic's not in the car, but Amy still is!) They both saw the truck driver's very surprised face and the driver quickly jammed his brake as hard as he could. Sonic instinctively jumped back to avoid the impact, but immediately remembered about Amy! But it was too late though, the 18-wheeler smashed into the back of the car at full force and carried it through the dense fog, leaving behind a very shocked blue hedgehog. It took nearly a football field distance to come to a complete stop. Sonic snapped out of his shock and quickly followed, hoping and praying that she was all right. 

Warning: the following gets rather graphic. You've been warned!

What Sonic saw was like a nightmare to him. Amy's car was now pointing the opposite direction that it originally was. About fifty feet behind the car, He could barely make out the 18-wheeler truck that smashed into the car. He noticed that the truck and its trailer had swerved sideways, forming a wall across the entire highway. 

A few other cars that were passing by nearly hit the truck as well. But they all stopped miraculously in time and simply drove around the truck. They had to drive on the shoulder of the highway to do this. Sonic could hear insults being exchanged between the truck driver and the other passing cars. All the cars seemed oblivious to Sonic and Amy's predicament, except the truck driver.

Sonic raced over to Amy's wrecked car, the back was smashed in and some windows were shattered. "Amy! Are you all right? Speak to me, say something!" Amy just made a few groans, so obviously she's still alive. He noticed that the chest strap of her safety belt had snapped. He also noticed her injuries and they didn't seem life threatening. Her face was slightly bloody and her nose was definitely broken. He also noticed a couple of her teeth stuck on the dashboard and also a few small bruises, cuts, and scrapes all over her. 

He tried to open up Amy's door to help her, but it was jammed. He ran around to the driver's side door and noticed that the door had completely broken off, giving Sonic easy access to help her. Sonic climbed half-way in, pushing away the limp driver's airbag (contrary to popular stereotypes, airbags DO NOT stay inflated. They inflate for only about a second or two, just long enough to protect your head from the steering wheel. However, in Amy's case, this doesn't matter). He reached over and tried to unbuckle the rest of her safety belt, but it was stuck (how that could happen is beyond me).

The truck driver jumped out of his 18-wheeler and ran over to them to give any possible help. "Hey, is there any way I can help? I don't want to leave you guys like this."

Sonic was now getting very frantic. He didn't want to use his spin attack to cut off the safety belt, he could injure her even more. Sonic then looked at the driver, "do you have something that can cut off this thing?"

The driver was also starting to get nervous, "um, oh yeah! I have a pocketknife." He quickly started digging through his pockets.

"Great," Sonic said, slightly relieved, "and after that, call the ambulance." The truck driver was taking a long time searching through his pockets. "HURRY UP SLOWPOKE!" Sonic almost screamed at him. 

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Oh no! What's to become of Amy? This is just a taste of what's about to happen. The third chapter is much worse, assuming that you wanted to know.


	3. The Second Impact

Author's note: Just to let you know, the gruesomeness is going to continue into this chapter.

Chapter 3: The Second Impact

Sonic and the truck driver are working frantically to pry Amy out of her car. She was bleeding badly out of her mouth, possibly from losing her teeth. While the truck driver was trying to find his pocketknife, Sonic decided to ask a few questions. "Hey, what's your name?"

The truck driver replied, "well, you called me 'slowpoke' didn't you? Just kidding, it's Ken." (Not from Street Fighter, mind you!) "There it is," Ken finally found his pocketknife, now he just has to open it! "It's kind of stuck, so I'll have to mess with it a little to get the blade out."

Sonic is now starting to get annoyed, but he's mostly worried about Amy's condition. He also wanted Ken to jump back into his truck and get it out of the way before a pile-up occurs. He asked Ken another question to temporarily get his mind off his worries. He noticed that the fog was still very thick.

"Ken, tell me what happened after you hit that car," Sonic asked with a nervous tone.

Ken was still trying to get the blade out, "I was doing about 35 mph, the legal speed limit for this kind of weather. What's the matter with this knife? Anyways, after I saw the car, I slammed on my brake. Controlling this truck with a 25 ton trailer is no easy task, especially in this fog. Slamming the brake causes a huge loss in control of my truck and the trailer, and it's very hard to regain control. I'm surprised that I didn't tip over or drive off the highway."

"Okay," Sonic said, "if your truck hit the car from BEHIND, how did you end up further down the road than the car? Do you need help with that?" Sonic pointed at the pocketknife.

"That's all right, I've almost got it," Ken said as politely as his nervous self could, "as for the car, as soon as I hit it, I completely lost control of my truck and I was continuously swerving back and forth to regain control. While doing this, I saw the car slip loose from the front of my truck and ended up where you see it now. As for me, I continued down the road and managed to stop completely. But since I have no control of my truck, it stopped in the position that you now see. My truck is now an illegal roadblock!" Ken finally pulled out the knife, "all right! I got it!"

"Hurry up, before something else happens." Sonic was looking around very nervously, trying to see anything else through the thick fog. He was very afraid of what could come out next. Unfortunately, his fears are about to come true very soon.

Amy gave a loud moan and started stirring. "S-Sonic, where are you?"

Sonic went to her side, "Amy, please don't move. Your badly injured and I don't want you moving around too much." His concern for her was so great that he no longer noticed his headache (it's still there though).

Amy gave a weak and bloody smile, "I guess I should have bought a car with a passenger air bag and a stronger safety belt. When I recover, I'm gonna sue the car company. He he." She gave a short laugh and started wincing from the pain, especially from her face. 

While Sonic was comforting Amy, Ken finally cut of her safety belt. "All right, it's done. I'll go run to my truck and call an ambulance." Sonic immediately tried to pull Amy out, but her leg was caught on something. 

"Amy," Sonic said, trying to say calm, "I'm going to pull your leg free, so try not to move around, okay?"

Ken barely took two steps when they all heard another loud engine noise coming from the fog, and then some headlights. They were all terrified when another 18-wheeler truck came rushing out of the fog, going faster than the first truck, and was coming right at them! This driver didn't see the car because the idiot was drinking a large cup of coffee that covered his face! They just stared and they were all petrified. Sonic snapped out of it and tried to pull Amy out, but he was just a split second too late. Ken also snapped out of his terrified trance and just barely jumped out of the way.

The 18-wheeler smashed into the FRONT of the car at full force, and the truck's brakes weren't hit this time. (Remember, the car is now pointing the opposite way from the first impact, and this time Amy no longer has her safety belt!) Once again, the car is being carried down the road. The force of the impact threw Sonic out of the car, but Amy is still inside! (Sonic was only halfway inside the car, so he got flung out). He managed to land on his feet, but he sprained his ankle. He looked towards the car and was completely horrified by what he's seeing.

The second truck was carrying the car towards the other 18-wheeler. The car is about to be smashed between two big 18-wheeler trucks and Amy's still in the car! The second truck's brakes were squealing loudly to avoid the impact, but it was far too late. Sonic sprung up to at least try to save her, but he quickly fell over from his twisted ankle. 

He then screamed with horror, "AMY, NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!"

Amy noticed the truck coming behind her and realized that she's about to get crushed. "SONIC, AAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!"

The little 1-ton car was immediately crushed between the two 30-ton trucks. Shards of glass and metal were flying all over the place. Sonic couldn't see the actual crash through the thick fog, but everyone within several miles could hear the impact, especially Sonic. He quickly got back up and limped over to the crash scene as fast as his twisted-ankle leg could take him.

When he finally arrived, the scene was nothing short of a total nightmare. He could see that the second truck had crashed into the side of Ken's truck. However, he couldn't find Amy's car anywhere! He decided to check between the truck for any sign of Amy. He ran over as fast he could, trying his best to ignore the pain shooting up his ankle.

Warning: This part is more graphic than the last chapter. You've been warned!

Sonic looked between the two wrecked trucks, and indeed he found her car. Luckily, her door had completely broken off. However, what he saw will haunt him forever. He got a good look at Amy and nearly threw up from what he saw. Her WHOLE body was very bloody, in fact there was hardly any pink color anywhere on her. It was as if she just dove into a pool of red paint, even her gloves and boots were bloody. Her whole body was crushed between her seat and the dashboard, now there's almost no way to pull her out.

Miraculously, she was still breathing, but she had a very shocked and dazed look on her face. Sonic also noticed that her hand was covering the right side of her head. He moved her hand away and saw something stuck to the side of her head. 

Amy then turned her head to look at him, "S-Soooonniiiiic," she struggled to speak in a whispering tone. 

Sonic almost jumped out of his shoes from what he saw, "this...this can't be real!"

He had a good view of Amy's head, and he was sure that he'll have nightmares. A long shard of metal about a foot long and less than an inch wide had completely impaled her head. It stabbed into her right temple and was sticking out the top of her head! Somehow she was still alive and barely conscious.

Just when Sonic thought the situation couldn't get any worse, it did. A few seconds later, Amy tensed up like a wooden board and quickly clutched her throat, as if she was choking or drowning underwater. Then to Sonic's horror, she started vomiting blood very violently! Blood was even squirting out of her nose, and the blood splattered all over the dashboard and the smashed windshield! Some of her blood nearly splattered on Sonic!

After a few seconds of this, she started going into violent twitches and spasms, she's obviously going into shock! Sonic was in a total panic, he absolutely didn't know what to do. He looked around and saw Ken was in his truck, finally calling an ambulance, despite his truck getting damaged. Sonic looked at the driver of the other truck and noticed that he too was calling an ambulance.

He looked back at Amy and noticed that she was no longer shaking around, but she was going limp! "Amy! No! Don't do this, don't you dare do this! Amy, look at me, LOOK AT ME!!" He yelled to get her attention and it worked. "Good. Now Amy, squeeze my hand. Come on, I know you can do it. I don't care if you break my hand, just squeeze it and don't let go!" Sonic's panic was almost uncontrollable. She squeezed his hand weakly, "now Amy, don't look around, just look at my face. Concentrate only on my face and keep holding my hand. Now don't give up, I know and you know that we will survive this, okay? OKAY!?

He noticed that Amy still had a constant trickle of blood flowing out of her nose and mouth. She then she stopped breathing and the life in her eyes were fading away fast. "Amy, please breathe! Cough out any more blood in your lungs and try to breathe!" She couldn't do it unfortunately, she lost too much blood and was once again going onto shock. 

"Amy! Please don't do this, DON'T DO THIS AMY!!" He was afraid to shake, he could injure her even further.

Finally, her body relaxed completely. Her grip on Sonic's had completely loosened, and the life in her eyes disappeared almost immediately. Her face had a very calm and peaceful look, as opposed to her face being full of terror and agony like earlier. Sonic slowly released her limp hand, noticing that Amy was still "staring" at him with lifeless eyes.

At that moment, Sonic's sanity completely left his body. He started laughing maniacally and babbling unintelligibly while limping around the crash scene. He then heard a few more crashing sounds and many horns blaring, but he absolutely didn't care. He clumsily slipped on a small puddle of blood and fell over, hitting his head hard on the concrete. 

He quickly got up and started feeling very dizzy. The world around him started spinning and going dark. He then fell over again, this time on his side, and dislocated his shoulder. He didn't seem to feel any pain though. The last thing he saw was Amy's limp hand hanging out of her car. The last thing he heard before blacking out was the wailing of emergency sirens. "I hope that they're not too late," Sonic thought, then blacked out. This has been one very stressful day.

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In case you want to know, the graphicness doesn't quite stop here. But this fic is far from over. When I add the next chapter, you'll see what I mean.


	4. Sonic's Nightmare

Author's note: There's one more fairly gruesome scene here. Just wanted to let you know. 

Chapter 4: Sonic's Nightmare

Tails woke up early in the morning, about 5 AM. For some reason he couldn't go back to sleep, he had a very worried feeling that something bad just happened. After nearly half an hour of trying to go to sleep, he gave up and decided to have an early breakfast. He jumped in the bathroom and took a quick shower to wake himself up completely. 

"Why do I have such a worried feeling? I feel like something bad happened to someone close to me. But I've never heard any bad news about anybody, I guess I'm just uptight. This shower should help me relax then."

After his shower, he was now wide-awake. He took out a bottle of orange juice and poured himself a cup, and then he made some toast with jelly. He didn't want a heavy breakfast since it's still too early. While still chewing his food, he turned on the television to occupy himself for a few minutes.

"I hope that there's no news on this early. I'd rather watch soap operas than that." Unfortunately, the first thing he saw on TV was the morning news.

"Hey, what's going on? The morning news doesn't start until 7 AM." Tails groaned with disgust and changed the channel. However, to his surprise, there was more news! He changed the channel again and saw more news! He repeatedly changed the channels and found them all to have the local news on! (Too bad he doesn't have cable!) Finally completely frustrated, he threw down the remote onto the couch.

"That does it! I'm going for a walk, I'd better be careful though, it's still dark outside." 

He was dressing up since it was chilly this early and accidentally overheard the news anchor. "Station Square is normally a very peaceful and uneventful place," said the news anchor, "but all that changed last night." Tails wasn't really paying attention. He's almost done dressing up and ready to leave.

The news anchor continued, "about 11:30 PM last night, a car pile-up occurred. To show you the details, I will rebroadcast the tape that recorded the incident." The news showed the footage from the accident scene. 

A news lady appeared in the footage. "Hello, this is Donna Yoshiana and I'm at the scene of a rather gruesome looking accident."

Tails finished getting dressed and was about to turn off the TV, if it weren't for what he just saw.

The news lady continued. "This car pile-up involved eight vehicles, including two 18-wheeler trucks. We also found out that there are fourteen people involved, but there are only two casualties. One is a blue hedgehog, and the other is a pink one, well actually it looks more red because of the blood. Right now they're being sent to Station Square Emergency Medical Center."

Tails saw the whole thing clearly and he dropped the TV remote onto the floor in shock. He saw Sonic laid out on a stretcher and being loaded into an ambulance. Tails then saw another stretcher with a large lump of bloody meat on it. 

"Hey, that lump of meat looks familiar." He looked very carefully at the TV screen. " A-Amy? Could that possibly be her?" Tails started to feel sick, "oh no, please tell me I'm still dreaming!" He pinched himself very hard, "ow! I guess not. Oh boy, in that case I'd better tell everyone!" He frantically ran to the phone, but before he dialed a single number, he heard a knock on the door.

"Who is it," Tails asked.

"It's me," said a familiar voice, "hurry and open up, I've got something urgent to tell you!"

"That sounds like Knuckles," Tails thought. He then quickly unlocked the door and swung it open, it was indeed Knuckles, with a very tense look on his face.

"Did you hear what just happened?" They both said at the same time.

"We've got to find them!" Knuckles was very anxious and almost seemed afraid! No, that can't be possible.

Tails agreed, "I know where that hospital is." He hesitated for a moment, "um, Knuckles. I think that we should tell Rouge about this."

Knuckles gave a puzzled look, "what for? You know she's a thief and a troublemaker."

Tails knew that he'd say that, "I know but we're going to a hospital and I think they need as many visitors as possible. I mean, what is she gonna steal? Maybe the food from the cafeteria?"

Knuckles smiled slightly, "well, knowing her, I wouldn't be surprised if she did. All right, I'll at least talk to her. Just tell me where the hospital is so that I can stop by." Tails wrote down the address for the hospital, and Knuckles took off to find Rouge while Tails set off to find his injured friends.

When Tails finally arrived at the hospital, he wasn't allowed to see Sonic or Amy. They were still in intensive care, however Sonic's injuries are very minor, so the doctors said that Sonic will be out by the end of the day. But Amy was in very critical condition, so Tails will have to wait quite a while before he could see her. The news hit him much harder that he thought.

Warning: This part is somewhat graphic. I decided to add it at the last minute.

Sonic knew that he would have a nightmare from the things he saw that happened to Amy. In his nightmare, a bunch of small monsters had tied both him and Amy down on a stone slab. They tried to scream for help, but they noticed that they were gagged over their mouth. Then two monsters appeared with something in their ugly hands. One was carrying a large hammer, and the other was holding a long metal stake or spike! A bunch of monsters held Amy's head in place while the long stake was held to the side of her head. 

"NO!" Sonic almost thought out loud, "they couldn't possibly be doing what I think they're doing!" He couldn't be more correct.

Amy struggled as best as she could, but the binds held fast and the monsters assisted in holding her still. Finally with the metal stake in position, the monster with hammer swung as hard as it could and hit the stake dead on. Sonic winced at the sound of metal clanging and bone splitting open. He could see the look of pure torture in her wide-open eyes. Even with the gag over Amy's mouth, her screams of agony were still very loud and clear. 

The stake went in about halfway, so the monster with the hammer swung again. More sounds of bone splitting were heard and Sonic tried his best to struggle out of his binds, but it seemed that his arms and legs were paralyzed. He couldn't do anything except watch or turn away his head. Either way he could still hear her crying and screaming in torturous agony.

Finally, the hammer was swung a third time. This time the stake completely impaled her head and was sticking out the top, just like that metal shard in Amy's head at the accident scene. Quickly, the monsters removed Amy's gag from her mouth. Immediately she gave a blood-curdling scream of terror and agony that was so loud it finally woke up Sonic from his nightmare. But her screams were still echoing through his head. 

His face was soaked with sweat and his heart was racing like he just broke the sound barrier (which he's more than capable of). He looked around and noticed that he's laying in a hospital bed. He could smell the anesthesia in the air and knew that his nightmare had ended, or has it? He checked himself and found that he had some bandages covering the top of his head, a small cast over his arm, and some wrappings around his ankle. A few seconds later, he heard a knock on the door and he nearly jumped out of the bed with a heart attack. A doctor walked in to talk with him.

"Hello there little guy," the doctor said as cheerfully as possible, "I've got some good news. You have some visitors!" The doctor stepped aside and Tails appeared. 

"T-Tails? TAILS!? Is that you?" Sonic was almost hysterical, but also very happy to see him.

"Well, unless there's another two and a half-foot fox with two tails somewhere around, then I guess I'm the one."

"Come here," Sonic said very cheerfully, "I've missed you big time."

"And everyone's worried about you and Amy big time." Tails was just as cheerful.

Sonic then remembered about Amy, especially his nightmare. But he was going to hide his nightmare for now. "Hey Doc! Where's Amy, the pink hedgehog from the accident scene? She's supposed to be with me."

The doctor simply scratched his head nervously, "um, I'm not exactly the one you should speak to about that. I'll go get the one in charge." He quickly stumbled out of the room, nearly running into a nurse.

Sonic just blinked a couple times, "you know, I think he's hiding something."

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Wow, I wonder what's in store for them now. The fic is going to shift from gruesome to somewhat depressing. I just decided to give you a little semi-preview.


	5. Amy's Condition

Author's Note: This chapter is not gruesome, but it is slightly depressing.

Chapter 5: Amy's Condition

"So, Sonic," Tails asked, "how are you feeling? Is it really bad?"

"Actually, I'm not feeling very good. And it's not because of me, it's about Amy. I got a good look at her before I went crazy and blacked out. Believe me, it was a total nightmare, I've never seen anyone so badly ruined in my life. Something tells me that she didn't survive, but I'm not willing to give into that feeling!"

"That's great to hear," a voice said just outside the door, "I wouldn't expect you to." Knuckles walked in and leaned on the doorframe with his arms crossed. "I figured that you could use a few visitors." 

Rogue walked in, which surprised Sonic a bit. "Hey! What's she doing here?" 

"Don't you worry," Knuckles said reassuringly, "I'm keeping an eye on her. Besides, she wouldn't miss the opportunity of seeing you in a hospital bed for anything. I'm not trying to be insulting though, that's exactly what she said to me."

"Well, now this is a surprise," Rogue said in an almost insulting tone, "I'd never think that I would actually see you lying down helplessly in a hospital bed. I'll bet your body is still very sore, isn't it?"

"Actually, I don't think his body is very sore anymore," a voice said behind Rogue. There stood another doctor, a bit older than the last one that visited Sonic. "My name is Dr. Carbana, I'm one of the trauma experts in this hospital."

"Hey doc," Sonic asked, "how long have I been out?"

"Three days," Tails answered, while the doctor nodded his head. "When I first arrived here, they wouldn't let me in because the doctors were still treating you and Amy. The doctors also said that they needed you for something. You were supposed to be out in just one day, not three."

Sonic was very shocked. "Three days! Hey, why was I here that long if I was coming out in just one day?"

"There's a reason for that," Dr. Carbana answered, "but I can't tell you right now. I need Amy's medical report, and then the answers will make more sense. Now let me check your injuries. Can you move your foot around?" Sonic moved his foot around without any pain in his ankle. "Now how's your head? Is there any pain at all?"

Sonic shook his head around and felt no more pain. "Well doc, I'm glad to say that my headache is finally gone."

"That's great," the doctor continued, "I'm going to remove the cast on your arm. After that, move your arm very slowly." 

After his cast was removed, Sonic moved his arm and shoulder around and felt no pain or soreness. "Hey, I don't feel anything! I must be a fast healer."

"Excellent," Dr. Carbana said with satisfaction, "the doctors managed to pop your shoulder back in place, luckily you were still unconscious or we'd have to use up some of our anesthesia. Now if all of you will follow me, we can check up on Amy."

"Wait, doc," Sonic asked with lots of concern, "is she all right? I mean she was pretty messed up last time I saw her."

Dr. Carbana took a deep breathe, "I'm afraid I can't exactly answer that right now. Her medical reports should be complete by now, so we should be heading towards her right now."

Sonic and company followed Dr. Carbana to a nearby elevator and went up two floors. Along the way, Sonic and the gang all noticed that the doctor had a very nervous face and it seemed to be getting paler by the second. They finally arrived at the place where Amy was kept. Dr. Carbana told them all to wait at a distance while an assistant handed him a clipboard with Amy's medical report listed. Sonic and the others saw the shocked look on the doctor's face and he nearly dropped the clipboard. He then sent the assistant away and called over Sonic and the others. The doctor had a very pale look and seemed almost speechless just by looking at him.

"Um, I'd like you all to come in with me now." The doctor looked like he was about to throw up.

They all went inside Amy's room, but they didn't see her right away. The first thing they saw was a large glass cylindrical tank of water against the wall with lots of machinery around it. They also saw a large curtain that extended the length of the room, thereby blocking their view of the other side of the room. Dr. Carbana breathed in and out a few times to calm himself. He looked more worried than Sonic! Could it be that the doctor knows something that Sonic and the others don't? 

The doctor finally spoke, "okay, what I'm about to tell you isn't for the faint of heart. If you don't want to hear what I'm about to say, then I suggest that you leave right now. Just wait outside in the hallway." He then pointed out the door, towards the hallway.

Sonic and company looked at each other confusingly. Sonic definitely chose to stay put, it was the least he could do for Amy right now. Rogue was actually very curious to find out what happened, so she also decided to stay. Surprisingly, Knuckles turn around and took a step to leave! But he quickly figured that this is being a coward, so he turned back around. He nervously rubbed the back of his head and smiled nervously, "uh, I was gonna use the restroom. I guess I'll just hold it instead, he he."

Tails was having a very hard time deciding. He couldn't tell if he should be there for Amy, or risk having nightmares from what the doctor says. Either way, Sonic decided to choose for him.

"Tails," Sonic said, "I want you to wait in the hallway."

"But, but Sonic," Tails complained, "I think I'm old enough to handle this."

"It doesn't matter," Sonic said more firmly, "I don't want to risk having you being affected and end up having nightmares!"

"Um, a-all right. Just say hi to Amy for me if you can." Tails slowly walked out into the hallway and found a bench to sit on.

"So, are you all done deciding?" Dr. Carbana looked at Sonic, Knuckles, and Rogue, they all looked ready. "All right. I must warn you though, in my twenty-eight years of working with trauma victims, I've never seen anything like this."

This didn't sound very reassuring to them. "Hey, is she at least alive," Sonic asked very anxiously.

"Oh she's definitely alive," Dr. Carbana answered, "her vital signs clearly show this." Sonic and the others gave a huge sigh of relief. "But-."

Sonic immediately became concerned again, "But what? What do you mean? Is there more?"

"Oh, there is A LOT more," the doctor answered while looking up and down the clipboard. "You see, her body has taken much more damage than I thought. In other words, she is alive, but not exactly in a way that you'd want her to be."

They didn't like that choice of words. Sonic started to feel sick, he was remembering the nightmare he had earlier, and was afraid that it might come true in some way. Knuckles and Rogue still didn't quite understand what was happening. Knuckles was starting to feel nervous though, it's because he has a slight phobia of hospitals. He's seen so much pain and suffering in other hospitals throughout his life that he developed this phobia. But he managed to keep it suppressed, until now. 

Warning: This part may be depressing to some people!

Dr. Carbana continued, "okay, here are her injuries. Gosh, I don't even know where to start!"

"Just start at the top of the list so that you don't get lost," Sonic said almost impatiently. Dr. Carbana took a deep, nervous breath and finally spoke about her medical condition. 

"When she arrived at this hospital, we found that she had lost more than 60 percent of her blood. 60 PERCENT! Anything that looses that much blood normally doesn't survive at all, maybe a few minutes if they're lucky. She still has some internal bleeding and hemorrhaging in various places. 

Also, more than half the bones in her body were badly smashed. Both arms and both legs were broken, and most of her rib cage was broken and caved in. Her left lung was punctured by a broken rib, damaging it beyond repair, so it was surgically removed. Her pelvis had a few fractures and the damage to her skull was sickening. I'm sad to say that she has some damage to her spine as well, we don't know yet if her spinal cord has been affected. 

What surprised me the most though is the mental damage. I'm very sad to say that she has some major brain damage. And worst thing on this list is she's in a severe coma. We have no idea how long before she wakes up, perhaps days, years, maybe never. Hopefully that won't happen though."

Sonic started feeling very guilty, the news was much more than he could bear. He wasn't the only one affected though. Rogue started to feel faint from all the things the doctor said. She couldn't imagine anyone with injuries like those. Knuckles was now starting to feel very nauseous and is starting to lose control of his phobia.

"Unfortunately," said Dr. Carbana, "these are only her current problems. We're not entirely sure about the long-term or permanent complications. We'll have to wait a while to find out."

Knuckles finally couldn't control himself anymore. "I, uh, I have to go use the restroom badly now." He quickly ran to the nearest restroom which he passed by earlier. Tails was somewhat surprised to see Knuckles rush in a hurry but quickly dismissed the thought, he didn't want to get involved with him at this moment. 

Knuckles looked around to see if anyone was following him then slipped into the restroom. He ran up to the sink, turned it on all the way and stared into the mirror. A few seconds later, he threw-up into the sink and watched it get washed down the drain. Knuckles has never felt so sick in his life, and he wasn't even ill!

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Well, they don't seem to be taking the news very well! Do you think there's any hope for Amy now? 


	6. Amy's Alive, But

Author's note: Once again, this chapter is rather depressing, as if you wanted to know.

Chapter 6: Amy's Alive, But......

Knuckles stared deeply into the mirror after washing out his mouth. He still felt very sick to his stomach and started to feel very embarrassed. "I can't believe that this is actually happening to me," Knuckles thought, almost out loud, "I'm the guardian of the master emerald, I'm supposed to be tough! I'd hate to know how my ancestors would feel if they see me puking my guts out into a sink like I had a hangover!"

Meanwhile, back at Amy's hospital room, Sonic was becoming very pale. He almost seemed to be a different shade of blue! Rogue was starting to feel quite lightheaded, and she almost didn't believe the doctor's words. 

Sonic was now starting to feel very sick and started thinking to himself. "I was so stupid! I mean, who in their right mind would ever stop a car in the middle a highway. Anyone who does that is just asking for an accident, and I got it. And because of me, Amy's in critical condition with a coma!" 

Sonic then started repeatedly banging his head on a nearby wall, kind of like a self-punishment. Rogue just stared in surprise, she never expected Sonic to deliberately hurt himself like this. Dr. Carbana quickly stopped him, "Hey, stop that! There's enough injured people in this hospital already."

Sonic stopped after a few more hits, but just simply slumped down to the floor. He sat down on the floor, leaned against the wall that he was hitting, and hugged his knees. There was a large bump on his head, but no bleeding. There was also a noticeable dent in the wall!

Knuckles finally exited the restroom and walked back to Amy's room. Tails saw Knuckles pass by again and decided to ask him something. "Hey, Knuckles! How is Amy? Is she okay?" Tails was very worried, and his tone of voice expressed it.

Knuckles turned towards Tails and saw that the young fox was worried sick because he doesn't know anything that's happened. The last time Tails saw Amy was on the morning news, and it wasn't pretty. 

Knuckles decided to give him some kind of answer. "Tails, if you want to know, Amy's alive. For now that's all that you should know. Just stay here until we come for you." Knuckles walked in the room without saying anything else and closed the door. Tails couldn't decide if he should worry more or feel relieved. 

When Knuckles walked in, he almost felt ashamed. "Sonic, what are you doing?" He saw Sonic sitting on the floor hugging his knees and rocking himself. "Hey, get up! You're making yourself a bad image and you're embarrassing yourself!" Sonic still sat there and didn't listen to a word he said. Even if he did though, he wouldn't care. He was too shocked and depressed to do anything else.

"All right," Dr. Carbana called their attention, "now that you're all here, I'm going to continue with Amy's report."

"You mean there's more?" Rogue asked, starting to feel faint again.

"Actually I'm done with the clipboard report," the doctor answered while putting the clipboard away, "but for the rest of the report, you'll all understand more if you see it for yourself." Dr. Carbana pointed at Sonic's depressed form, "that is if he wants me to continue." 

Sonic finally snapped out of his depressed trance. "No! Please continue. It's the least we could do for Amy right now."

"Okay, since you're all ready." The doctor pulled out a remote that resembled a garage door opener and pressed the button. Immediately the large curtain slowly moved away, revealing the other side of the room. And on the other side of the room was none other than Amy herself! She was lying on a large hospital bed with lots of tubes and wires connected all over her body. She had large casts on her arms and legs, and lots of bandages around her upper body and head. They all gathered around her bed to get a closer look. Knuckles was very hesitant, but forced himself over.

The doctor decided to speak first, "I'm sure that you'll all be amazed that she's still alive despite her severe injuries. Her arms and legs have healed slightly and most of her rib cage is repairing itself as well. You can also hardly see any sign of cuts or bruises, even though she did have over five hundred stitches all over her body."

They were all very amazed indeed! Sonic decided to speak up, "wait a minute. If she's been here for only three days, how could those injuries heal in such a short amount of time?"

"I'm glad you asked," the doctor answered, "you see that glass tank against the wall? That's the reason that she's still alive. That's an experimental saline tank. It's designed to greatly speed up the healing process by using experimental chemicals and medicine. It was installed just a few weeks ago and since then, it was used only twice and they were both successful. When Amy arrived at this hospital, her body was so badly damaged that there was no choice but to use it. We couldn't risk letting her heal naturally, she would be dead long before that happened."

"Wow! That's amazing doctor," Rogue said.

Sonic almost forgot to ask a question earlier, "hey doc, I almost forgot. Why was I kept here for three days? Can you answer that now?"

"Gladly," the doctor replied, "you see, when Amy arrived here, she had lost so much blood that I was very surprised that she was still alive! But her pulse was almost undetectable, so she needed a blood transfusion immediately! However, the only source for hedgehog blood was you. We had to extract nearly half of YOUR blood in order to save her. We had to put you on life support temporarily to keep you from going into shock while we took out some of your blood. In other words, about half of the blood flowing through her veins is really yours!"

Sonic was both amazed and shocked, "so, is that why I was here for three days?"

"Exactly," the doctor answered, "your own injuries were very minor. But because of the blood transfusion, we had to keep you here until your body recovered the blood that was extracted. We were actually surprised that it only took three days!"

They all took a good look at Amy, she was very peaceful and calm looking. They also noticed a large tube going into her mouth and down her throat. "Um, doctor," Knuckles asked while pointing at the tube in Amy's mouth, "what is that?"

Dr. Carbana took a glance, "that's a respiration tube. It's designed to help her breathe. You see, that saline tank can only help heal normal wounds. However, it can't heal internal organs or replace blood loss. Remember I said that her left lung was damaged beyond repair and removed? Well her right lung is perfectly fine, except it isn't functioning right. This could be another side effect of her brain damage. So until this problem is corrected, this machine should do the breathing for her."

The whole group couldn't believe their ears! It seems like more complications are appearing out of nowhere!

"Unfortunately," the doctor continued, "that's not all. You see those tubes all over her body? They're designed to control internal bleeding and hemorrhaging. But we can't seem to stoop the bleeding. Therefore, she may need another blood transfusion, though not anywhere near as big as the first one."

"You don't even have to ask," Sonic interrupted, "if this will help Amy at all, I'm more than willing to do it."

"Okay," the doctor replied, "this time, only about ten percent of you blood is needed. You don't need a life support machine this time, but you may feel a bit lightheaded for a day or so."

"Let's do it," Sonic said very boldly.

Later that day, the whole group began to feel better for Amy. At least they know that she's still alive. Even though she's in a coma, it's now just a matter of waiting for her to wake up. Although they didn't know how long it would be, they each decided to take turns being with Amy. They even allowed Tails to participate (though they didn't tell him all the graphic stuff that the doctor mentioned)! 

However, Dr. Carbana wasn't feeling very optimistic. He studied Amy's body scans and based on some certain damages to her nervous system, he was starting to make a few very startling predictions. He was also hoping that none of them would really come true. He'll just have to wait until Amy wakes up, if at all.

Days passed, weeks passed, and months passed by. The whole group was starting to feel very worried, especially Sonic. He just couldn't get over how stupid he was acting the night of the accident. His depression started to grow rapidly and it was eating him alive from the inside. He could almost feel it.

Amy's birthday came and went, and the whole group left some flowers and small gifts at her bedside. Sonic decided to stay an extra day to give her some companionship for her birthday. Over the months, Sonic became very depressed and usually wouldn't eat. He started feeling very frail and constantly tired, but his hope for Amy never diminished. 

Finally, after SIXTEEN long and agonizing months, Amy's brain waves indicated that she was regaining consciousness! Dr. Carbana now felt much more nervous than he had ever been, but decided to tell Sonic and the others. They all felt extremely relieved and happy and they began to celebrate. But little did they know that their nightmare is about to begin once again, and Dr. Carbana already knew it! 


	7. Amy's Awake!

Author's Note: I found that this chapter was originally too short. This is because I accidentally left out some material. I've just revised this chapter.

Chapter 7: She's Awake!

"Dr. Plaskip, are you absolutely sure about this?" Dr. Carbana was very nervous and very pale while getting a second opinion from the other doctor. Dr. Plaskip is one of the greatest neurological experts. He knows about the brain and nervous system inside and out.

"Dr. Carbana," Dr. Plaskip replied, "in this field of work, there is no such thing as a sure thing. But based on the damages to Amy's brain and nervous system, I'm almost certain that your predictions will happen. Now that Amy is regaining consciousness, more tests will have to be done to make perfectly certain about her condition. Once the tests are complete, you'll receive the results right away."

"So, what do I tell her friends?" Dr. Carbana didn't like where this news was going.

Dr. Plaskip pondered for a moment, "I guess all you can do is tell them everything. But when you do, I suggest running for cover once the news hits them!"

"Once again, it looks like I'll have the unfortunate job of breaking the news to them." Dr. Carbana was starting to feel depressed. Never in his entire long career had a situation like this ever appeared. 

Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Rogue were busy celebrating at a fast food restaurant. They were all very happy that Amy was finally awake after such a horrifying incident. Dr. Carbana gave them his pager so that he could call them when Amy is ready to be visited. They all waited almost impatiently at a nearby apartment for the pager to go off, but it wasn't until about 8 o'clock in the evening that they finally got the reassuring signal. Sonic was so excited that he was out the door and halfway to the hospital before the others got up!

"Ooh! I hope she looks all right. At least now I get to apologize to her for what I put her through." Sonic arrived at the main door of the hospital, but noticed that he was alone. He decided to wait for the others despite being very excited. It just wouldn't be fair for him to see Amy without the others accompanying him. He figured that she would like to see them all at once. After a few minutes of waiting very anxiously, he finally spotted them coming over. 

Tails and Rogue were both flying as fast as possible, and Knuckles was running as fast as he could. (Knuckles isn't nearly as fast as Sonic, but is quite fast nonetheless, at least by human standards!) They were all very excited to see Amy alive AND awake after so many months.

Dr. Carbana watched them outside his window, he was feeling sick to his stomach. "I feel like I'm leading them into a trap. An emotional trap that is!"

Dr. Plaskip walked into the room, "Dr. Carbana, the results of Amy's tests should be ready in a few minutes. Have her friends arrived yet?"

"Absolutely," Dr. Carbana answered, still looking out the window, "they just entered through the main door."

"Great timing. Go greet them and tell them to wait in the hallway until you receive the test results." Dr. Plaskip exited the room while Dr. Carbana continued to stare outside the window.

"Should I tell them everything?" Dr. Carbana was thinking nervously to himself, "if I hold back any information, it just wouldn't be right. But I just can't bear to see the looks on their faces when I tell them. This isn't fair! All of the trauma patients throughout my career had at least the dignity to die peacefully after their body has been badly damaged beyond help, but Amy is totally different. It's as if death itself is keeping her alive just so it can torment her further!" He finally snapped out of his trance and left the room to greet them.

Sonic and the others ran inside the elevator, nearly running into a few nurses along the way. As soon as the elevator doors opened on Amy's floor, Dr. Carbana was standing right in front of them. They were surprised that the doctor would greet them so quickly. 

"Hi there Doc," Sonic said cheerfully, "how's Amy? I heard that she's finally awake! We all rushed here as soon as we heard the news!"

Dr. Carbana looked very pale and was sweating heavily, he seemed to be on the verge of throwing up! "Well hello everyone, Amy's awake in her room. The doctors are running a few more tests and I should be getting the results at any minute."

They all walked to Amy's room and waited just outside. Sonic and gang were starting to feel concerned for the doctor, he looked like he was about to faint or something. 

"Uh, doctor," Knuckles asked, "are you all right? You're starting to freak us out."

"Don't worry about me so much," the doctor said reassuringly, "I'm just very tense right now. Amy's injuries are just so unusual that it has taken almost all of my attention. Seeing her, or any patient like this always gets me uptight."

A few seconds later, an assistant walked up to the doctor with a new clipboard. "Dr. Carbana, the test results are complete, here you go." He handed the doctor the clipboard and left.

"I want to check her files before we enter," the doctor said nervously," there's something I want to check first before we see her." He started to hesitantly read through the clipboard, he almost seemed afraid to look at it.

Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Rogue all looked at each other strangely and just shrugged their shoulders. They thought that it's part of the procedure, so they didn't complain. However, they had trouble holding in their excitement. They can finally see Amy alive and conscious after so many months. Sonic especially could hardly wait.

What happened next startled them completely. Dr. Carbana let out a loud, frustrated yell and threw the clipboard on the floor so hard that it actually cracked! He then punched his fist into a nearby wall, almost breaking his hand!

"Doctor," Rogue said in a shocked voice, "what was that for? What's wrong?" The others also stared at the doctor, wondering the same thing. 

Dr. Carbana noticed that his hand was bleeding slightly from punching the wall. He simply walked to a nearby medicine closet and pulled out a large band-aid. While placing the band-aid, he turned to them and said a simple, but very emotional statement. "I have some good news, some bad news, . . . . . . and some VERY bad news." They immediately started to feel uncomfortable again because of those words. 

"I think it's best that you hear the good news first," the doctor said, "because once I mention the other two, the good news isn't going to sound very promising anymore. Now let me tell you the good news. 

The first one is obvious, she's finally conscious. Duh! That's what you came here for. Another good news is that despite severe brain damage, she doesn't seem to show signs of memory loss! One final good news is that during her many months in a coma, most of the injuries she had when she first arrived here have been repaired. Both of her arms and legs are normal, her rib cage has healed, even the damage to her skull has miraculously healed. As far as I know, that's all the good news."

Knuckles asked nervously, "so, what's the bad news?"

The doctor swallowed hard, "during Amy's stay in here, I've been studying many charts and body scans to monitor her condition. While looking through all this information, I've made a few rather disturbing predictions about the long term affects to Amy's health. Every time I made a prediction, I'm always hoping in my mind that none of it will come true. Unfortunately, after looking through that clipboard, all of my hopes have been shattered."

"So doc," Sonic asked, "what's the VERY bad news?" He was almost afraid to ask.

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I wonder what the VERY bad news could be. I mean, things can't get any worse, or can it?


	8. Serious Complications

Author's Note: This is likely the most depressing chapter in the entire fic! Just wanted to let you know!

Chapter 8: Serious Complications

Dr. Carbana started hyperventilating and felt slightly lightheaded. 

"Hey, Doc!" Sonic was starting to feel hysterical, "I asked you a question. What's the very bad news? Why's it so hard just to answer that?"

The doctor took a deep breath, "because, words just aren't enough to express the very bad news. If I only tell you, you're probably not going to believe me. You need to see it in person to fully understand it."

"W-what do you mean," Sonic asked very concerned, "is this just like last time?"

The doctor seemed to be hesitating to answer Sonic's question, and it was starting to get on everyone's nerves. "Actually, in a way this could be much worse than last time. Once again, if you don't want to see or hear what's about to happen, then I suggest you wait out here in the hallway."

Sonic turned to Tails, but the fox already knew what he'd say. "Don't worry Sonic," Tails quickly said with a pouting face, "you don't have to tell me." He sat on a bench in the hallway, "just go in without me."

The doctor walked into Amy's room when Rogue stopped him for a moment, "doctor, don't you need your clipboard? It's still on the floor."

"No, I don't need it right now," the doctor answered, "I've studied Amy's injuries so much that everything that's listed in that clipboard isn't new to me. Now that you're all ready, please follow me."

Sonic, Knuckles, and Rogue nodded at each other and followed. As soon as they were inside, Tails noticed the clipboard that the doctor carelessly left on the floor. He looked around if anyone was watching and quickly snatched the clipboard and sat on the bench with it. He looked through the medical report, and after reading just the first page, he had a look of total shock and was deeply hurt from what he read. He was so saddened by what he read that he let the clipboard slip from his hands and it fell to the floor again. (This clipboard seems to be getting abused!) He hunched over and buried his face in his hands and started crying. Now he knows why Sonic didn't want him in the room right now.

When Sonic and the others were in the room, it was like deja vu. The large curtain was once again blocking their view of the other side of the room. They all started to get a bad feeling because of what the doctor said, and Knuckles decided to speak up.

"Uh, doctor. What's going on? What did you mean by words not being enough and us seeing it to understand it?"

Dr. Carbana pulled out the control to open the curtain, "believe me. You're about to see exactly what I mean." 

He pushed the button and the curtain moved away. This time, Amy wasn't lying down on the bed, but was sitting in a wheelchair with an assistant standing next to her! Dr. Carbana motioned for the assistant to leave the room. As soon as he left, they all gathered around Amy. Sonic and gang were about to congratulate her when they noticed something unusual.

Warning: I'll be very direct. This could be quite depressing!

She had a very blank, emotionless look on her face. She almost looked drugged or stoned! Sonic was totally stunned, "uh, doc. Why is her face like this? Is she drugged or something?"

"Not really," the doctor answered, "she was on painkillers all day, but they have no side effects. What you're now seeing is caused by her brain damage, she tends to be in a comatose state. It should wear off though, but that's not the real problem."

"Oh no, now what," Rogue was almost afraid to ask, "what's that supposed to mean."

The doctor took a deep breath and thought for a moment, "I'll show you." He walked up really close to Amy, "hello, Amy? Can you hear me?" She nodded slowly. "Good, now can you please try to stand up? 

Amy got into a position to stand up. However, she seemed to have trouble moving any further. She's acting as if her body weighed several tons and she couldn't even get out of the wheelchair! Sonic was very alarmed by this. "Doc! Why isn't she getting up? Is she still drugged or exhausted?"

"Actually," the doctor answered, "it wouldn't matter if she is or isn't. She's paralyzed from the waist down. The tests showed that her spinal cord did take some damage after all. I'm afraid that she'll be confined to a wheelchair for quite some time." 

Sonic and the gang were completely speechless. Their mouths just gaped wide open in total shock.

"I'm afraid that's just the tip of the iceberg," Dr. Carbana continued, "it seems that the damage to her brain has had other disturbing affects. I'm about to ask her a simple question, then you'll know what I mean." He then turned to Amy and asked in a firm voice, "Amy, I know this is a dumb question but, can you please tell all of us you name?"

Amy took a deep breath, "m-m-m-mmmmmyyyyyy n-n-n-nnnnnnaaaaaaammmmme i-i-i-iiiiissssssss A-a-aaaammmmmmyyyyyyyy."("My name is Amy" in case you didn't understand that)

They were totally confused by what just happened. But Rogue spoke first, "doctor! What happened? She seems to be struggling with every word she said! And I can hardly understand what she said either!"

"Exactly," the doctor said almost flatly, "you see, the nerves in her voice box aren't working properly. It's another result of her brain trauma. The part of her brain that controls speech has been damaged. Also, did you know that your tongue is responsible for almost every word you say? Well there's another complication that involves her tongue."

"Her tongue?" Knuckles had a weird puzzled look, "what's that have to do with anything?"

"Watch," the doctor replied. He then reached into his pocket and pulled out a cherry-flavored lollipop. He unwrapped it, gave it to Amy, and then asked her another simple request. 

"Amy, do you like lollipops?" Amy nodded slowly. "Great! Ok, go ahead. Lick it, it's very good."

Amy put the lollipop close to her mouth and opened it. What happened next was, well, nothing! Amy gave a confused look and opened her mouth again. This time she started making groaning and struggling sounds. She's having trouble sticking out her own tongue!

The doctor interrupted her efforts, "never mind Amy. Just put it in your mouth and suck on it. Lollipops are also for sucking too you know."

Amy put the lollipop in her mouth and started sucking on it. After a few seconds, Amy pulled out the lollipop and started to freak out! "I-I-I c-c-caann't t-t-taaassste i-i-iiit!" (I can't taste it!)

They all started to freak out, and Sonic was affected the most. "Doc! What's happening? Why is she like this?" Sonic was crushed and started feeling very sick to his stomach.

"She can't move her tongue," the doctor replied, "her tongue is paralyzed, in fact her whole mouth is paralyzed. She can't taste anything either, which is why Amy can't lick or taste the lollipop. And since she can't move her tongue, this is why it's hard to understand her. Also, her voice box isn't working properly, which makes it even harder to understand what she says. And there are still more complications."

"Oh great, I can hardly wait," Sonic said sarcastically.

"For her next complication," Dr. Carbana continued "I'll need Knuckles participation."

"Huh!" Knuckles was surprised from what the doctor asked, "what do I have to do with any of this?"

"You have nothing to do with any of this," the doctor answered, "but I need your assistance. Now let's go to the other side of the room. I don't want the others to here this." He explained his demonstration and Knuckles was very confused by what he said, but decided to do it anyway. They both walked back to Amy who seemed to be feeling very depressed.

"Amy," the doctor said gently, "please don't feel so bad right now. You've been through so much, but your friends are here and you should trust them and also trust me. Do you trust us all?" Amy hesitated for a moment, then nodded. 

"That's great. Thank you," the doctor continued, "now please cover your right eye with your right hand. No peeking through that eye, okay?" 

She listened and covered her eye completely, leaving her left one wide open. Knuckles then walked up to Amy, and to everyone's surprise (except the doctor), he swung his fist at her! He was aiming for the left side of her face and quickly stopped his fist less than an inch from Amy's face!

"Knuckles!" Sonic screamed hysterically, "what are you doing!? Are you crazy!?"

Then Sonic and everyone noticed what just happened. Knuckles didn't really hit Amy, because his fist didn't quite touch her face. But when he threw that fake "punch," she didn't even blink! Knuckles was very surprised and he threw another fake "punch" to the left side of her face without touching it, and she still didn't blink!

"Okay, that's enough," the doctor interrupted, "Amy, you can put your hand down." When she put down her hand, Knuckles quickly withdrew his fist and put it behind him before she saw it.

"Um, doctor?" Rogue was feeling creeped out, "what's going on? This is freaking me out!"

"It's very simple," the doctor replied, "she's blind in her left eye."

All these things were more than they cold bear, but there was still more. Their nightmare has resurfaced right before their eyes.

"There's one more thing that you should see." Once again, he turned to Amy. "Amy, there's one more thing I want you to do, okay? Then it will be over." Dr. Carbana reached into another pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. "I'm going to blindfold you for just a moment, okay? Please don't be afraid, I'm a professional doctor and I know what I'm doing." 

Amy agreed without problems and the doctor blindfolded her. The doctor walked to a medicine closet and pulled out a brand new syringe needle. The others stared with lots of concern, but they trusted him. He also out took some alcohol and cotton. He rubbed the alcohol on her left arm and pierced her arm with syringe. Amazingly, she didn't react in any way! 

He then did something that would get himself in big trouble. He started moving the needle around while it's still in her arm! This is normally a very painful process, yet Amy still didn't react!

"Now what's this supposed to mean?" Sonic asked, somewhat puzzled and totally creeped out.

The doctor took a deep breath, "I hate to tell you this, but the whole left side of her body is numb. It isn't paralyzed though because as you can see, she can still move the left side of her body. She just doesn't have any feeling on that side. But there's one part on the left side that's paralyzed somewhat. Take a good look at the left side of her mouth."

They all looked closely and noticed that the left side of her lips is drooping slightly. She was also starting to drool out the left side of her lips! Because of all these complications, she looks like a retard! 

The doctor continued, "it's mostly because of this." 

He walked up to a drawer and pulled out what looked like a zip-lock bag. Inside was a long, thin shard of metal. Sonic immediately recognized it as being the same shard of metal that impaled Amy's head at the crash scene. 

"This piece of metal was imbedded in Amy's skull and it pierced through her brain. This is what caused most of her brain trauma. I'm also sad to say that her intelligence seems to have dropped a few IQ points. Hopefully this isn't very serious or permanent. 

I'm sorry that I showed you these things, but I figured that you'll understand better and believe what her complications are truly like. Now that you've all seen the demonstrations, I'll recap on her complications. She's paralyzed from the waist down, blind in her left eye, lost all feeling on the left side of her body, lost her sense of taste, her entire mouth is paralyzed and numb, she's drooling out the left side of her mouth, and she's slightly mentally impaired at the moment."

Sonic has finally had all the news he could take. He quickly ran out into the hallway. Tails was busy crying his eyes out when he saw Sonic barge into the hallway. Sonic completely broke down from all that's happened since the accident. He fell on his hands and knees and did something that even he didn't know he was capable of. He started crying, deeply. He then curled into a fetal position and started sobbing uncontrollably. Tails and everyone in the hallway was staring, but he didn't care.

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Wow! Sonic doesn't seem to be taking this very well. Do think this can have some effect on the others? You better believe it!


	9. The News Sinks In

Author's Note: Some of the technical stuff in this chapter is not very certain to me, the physical properties of the needle for example. Although, this is just a fanfic anyway. This chapter is slightly depressing, but you're probably used to that by now.

Chapter 9: The News Sinks In

Knuckles and Rogue were so shocked by what they saw that they didn't even notice that Sonic had left the room. They were off in their own world, trying very hard to comprehend all that's happening to Amy and her health. Rogue watched as the doctor pull off the blindfold from Amy and he started talking to her, most likely trying to comfort her. Rogue wasn't paying much attention because her attention was on Knuckles and she started to feel quite upset at him. She walked up to Knuckles, who was still in a trance, and slapped him upside his head! 

"Hey!" Knuckles was badly startled, "what was that for?"

"Knuckles!" Rogue was starting to lose her temper, "what were thinking? How can you possibly try to throw a punch at Amy? Hasn't she been through enough already?"

"For your information," Knuckles replied as calmly as possible, "I didn't even hit her because my fist stopped short of her face. Heck, Amy probably didn't even know about it!"

"I don't care," Rogue said in a slightly calmer voice, "how could you even attempt that? You risked accidentally hitting her and -"

Knuckles cut her off by throwing a punch at her! Rogue quickly put her arms up to block it, but didn't feel any impact. She lowered her guard slightly so she could see and noticed that Knuckles fist is barely three inches from her face!

"Did you really think that I was going to hit you," Knuckles asked, "then why did you react? You're forgetting that I'm an expert martial artist. I think I know how to throw a FAKE PUNCH!"

Rogue was surprised at Knuckles' little "stunt" and was quite speechless.

Knuckles continued, "you should consider yourself lucky, at least you were able to see my fist coming. Amy isn't so lucky though, she blind in her left eye, which means she didn't see my fist at all. That's why she didn't react at all when I threw that faked out punch. I believe that doctor was trying to prove that point. Now leave me alone right now, I'm stressed out enough already!" 

The doctor noticed them arguing and quickly intervened. "Hey, hey, hey! Break it up! I don't want you two beating each other up. Like I said before, there's enough injured people in this hospital already."

Rogue knew that Knuckles is being very stubborn right now. So talking to him some more isn't going to get her anywhere. So she decided to vent some of her frustrations on the doctor. 

"Doctor," Rogue said in a very frustrated voice, "are you some kind of nutcase or something!? Weren't you concerned about Amy's well being when you did those demonstrations?"

"Excuse Me!?" Dr. Carbana felt very offended at what she said to him, but he quickly calmed down because he understood how Rogue must be feeling. He then spoke in a calmer voice, "I've been a trauma physician for twenty-eight years which included twelve years of special medical training. I know how to exploit a person's physical problems without completely endangering the patient. There's no way that I can be where I am now by being careless. Everything that I just did was a very carefully calculated risk."

"Oh, is that so?" Rogue was very doubtful towards the doctor's words.

"Absolutely," the doctor replied, "for example, you were probably wondering about the needle that I used on her left arm. When I wiggled the needle around, you were probably afraid that it would break off and get stuck in her arm. Well I thought of a way to avoid that."

The doctor walked to the same medicine cabinet and pulled out an identical needle that he used earlier. He unsealed it and gave it to Rogue.

"Try not to poke yourself," the doctor continued, "that's no ordinary needle. Try to snap that needle in half or completely bend it."

Rogue took a good look at the needle. It was about eight inches long and about twice the thickness of a toothpick. Therefore, bending this should be quite simple. She grasped both ends of the needle, being careful not to poke herself and tried to bend it. Surprisingly, it wouldn't bend! She applied much more force on the needle and it still wouldn't give! Finally, feeling somewhat frustrated, she put the needle on the floor and stepped on one end. Then she held the other end with both hands and pulled as hard as she could until her face turned red and it still wouldn't break! She picked it up and looked at the needle and noticed a very slight, almost unnoticeable bend and that was all!

"What's this thing made of?" Rogue was very surprised that her efforts did almost nothing, "it's like I'm trying to bend a lead pipe instead of a needle!"

"That's an epidural needle," the doctor answered, "those are designed to withstand over five hundred pounds of force before breaking or bending. I'm surprised that you bent it even slightly, you must be stronger than you look. These are mostly kept in the maternity ward, but every room in this hospital has at least two of those needles just for emergencies."

"So, why is it so hard to bend," Rogue sounded slightly confused.

The doctor replied, "that needle is designed to help patients who are about to give birth and are having numerous complications. When that needle is injected, there is a strong chance that the patient will move around a lot. Therefore, we cannot risk using an ordinary needle and end up having it break off and get stuck in the patient. Normal needles are made of stainless steel, but that one is made of a special carbon-steel composite. That makes it almost as strong and hard as a diamond."

Rogue was convinced with the needle part, but she was still skeptical about his other methods. "All right then, why did you have Knuckles try to hit her? That seemed rather careless to me."

"I know it seemed that way," the doctor answered, "While Amy was still in her coma, I talked to Knuckles a few times. He didn't seem very social, but assured to him that getting some basic information was very important, since there's little information about all of you. He mentioned that he was a professional martial artist, and so I decided to use him for my demonstration after Amy woke up. I could have tried doing the demonstration instead of Knuckles, but I'm not much of a fighter. I could slip up and accidentally hit her for real, and I can't risk that."

"Okay," Rogue was starting to get somewhat frustrated, "why did you ask her to try to get up? She could have fallen over and hurt herself even further."

"There's no way she could get up if she tried," the doctor quickly replied.

"Huh?" Rogue was confused, "what's that supposed to mean?"

"That was another calculated risk," the doctor answered, "you have to realize that she was in a coma for nearly a year and a half, which means in that entire time, her body has had absolutely no exercise and she hasn't eaten any solid food. Most of her body's systems were in suspended animation. If you take a good look at her, you'll notice that she is very weak and frail. She has almost no energy in her body right now because during her coma, the only thing keeping her alive is that hanging I.V. bag. Because of this, she's too frail to even make facial expressions, which is why she has such a blank look on her face. Therefore, there's no way she could have the energy to pull herself out of the wheelchair. That assistant you saw standing next to her earlier was the one that took her out of the bed and put her in the wheelchair."

The doctor paused for a few seconds, "Although, I do admit that my methods are a bit . . . . . . unethical."

Rogue was now starting to feel very frustrated and she turned back to Knuckles. "Well! Knuckles, don't you have any opinions about this?" 

Rogue and Dr. Carbana immediately noticed that Knuckles wasn't feeling very good to say the least. They noticed that Knuckles' face was turning very pale and he started to lose his balance. He then fell flat on his tail into a sitting position and then started breathing very loud and hard.

"Knuckles!" Rogue sounded very concerned. She's never seen him like this before, "are you all right? Can you stand up?" 

"Don't worry," the doctor said reassuringly, "I've seen this many times before. He's just having a panic attack. It should subside in a few seconds."

Rogue helped him up and he started to calm down. But almost immediately, Knuckles' face started turning green and he felt very nauseous so quickly that he didn't have time to run to the restroom. Instead, he ran to the window, swung it open, stuck his head out, and threw up outside! The vomit rained down four stories and splattered all over a parked car! (The owner of that car is gonna have an interesting day at the car wash!)

Dr. Carbana and Rogue just stared in disbelief. "Oookaaay," Rogue said, feeling very embarrassed that she just witnessed that.

"Um, Knuckles," the doctor said while opening a door to a small room near the entrance to Amy's room, "there's a little restroom right here. Every hospital room has one. Earlier you said you had to use the restroom and you just walked right by this one. I was going to tell you, but you rushed out suddenly."

Knuckles turned around with some vomit still covering his mouth. He quickly ran into the small restroom and slammed the door shut. More sounds of vomiting were quickly heard. "I can't believe that this is happening to me," Knuckles thought to himself, "my ancestors must be turning in their graves right now."

"You know," the doctor stated, "if he continues this, he could dehydrate himself. I'll go check on Sonic, I guess I'll have to apologize to him for making him feel so depressed. Hopefully, he's at least still in the hospital. Rogue, if you want to, please check on Knuckles while he's in there. Knock on the door or something. And also, please talk to Amy because she needs some companionship right now. It may be hard to communicate with her, but luckily her sense of hearing hasn't been affected." 

He then walked to get a nurse or assistant to watch over Amy's room while he's gone to check on Sonic. But before he did any of that, he already saw Sonic and Tails. Tails wasn't crying as badly, but he still looked very sad and worried. Dr. Carbana noticed the clipboard on the floor and realized that Tails must have read through it. The doctor felt like kicking himself for leaving the clipboard on the floor earlier. He then turned and saw Sonic. Sonic wasn't curled up this time, instead he was sitting on the floor against the wall and hugging his knees. He wasn't really crying anymore, but he still had a look of pure anguish and pain on his face. He also kept muttering the same phrase repeatedly: "It's not fair, it's just not fair!"

The doctor gave a loud sigh, "nearly thirty years being a trauma doctor and I still can't get used to this."

Meanwhile, in another part of the trauma center:

A strange patient is quickly wheeled into the trauma center admittance room, something that's very routine here except for the patient itself. One of the trauma doctors (not Dr. Carbana) runs in and checks the patient for vital signs. It's not breathing, but has a weak pulse. 

"Tell me everything you know about this," the doctor quickly asked the assistant.

The assistant took a deep breath to calm himself, "a fisherman said that he saw something that resembled a meteorite falling from the sky. It crashed into the water near him and decided to check it out. It was getting dark though, so he had to use his flashlight. He then saw a body floating in the water and quickly fished it out. After this, he called for an ambulance and the victim was rushed to this hospital."

The trauma doctor took a god look at the patient and noticed a strong resemblance to someone else in the hospital. "Call Dr. Carbana, I think he'll find this very surprising."

"What do I tell him," the assistant asked.

"Just tell him this." The doctor gave a quick explanation of what to say. He then continued checking for vital signs and prepared the patient for body scans while the assistant went to an intercom. 

Back to the hallway outside Amy's room:

"Sonic," Dr. Carbana said, sounding as sympathetic as possible, "I'm very sorry that you had to see and hear all that. Breaking out the bad news is one thing that I always feel guilty about. This is why I always feel hesitant to tell the families and friend of the patients here. I always have at least one or two people having some kind of emotional breakdown. I also have a more personal reason, but now is not the time to say it."

Sonic didn't seem to hear him at all. He just continued muttering and rocking himself. He was a total emotional mess. A few seconds later, he began to speak somewhat coherently. 

"It's just not fair I tell you. All I wanted was for her to leave me alone. I just wanted to get away from her. I didn't want all of this to happen. This is . . . . this is all my fault."

"Don't blame yourself like this," the doctor said, trying to calm him down, "you'll ruin yourself even further."

"You just don't get it do you?" Sonic almost yelled, "I was extremely careless. In fact, it's almost like I wanted this to happen." The doctor was very surprised to hear him say such a thing.

"W-what's that supposed to mean?" Tails finally broke out of his tearful trance and was very concerned. 

"Hey, what's happening?" Knuckles walked into the hallway. His face was cleaned up and he seemed to be feeling a little better. He saw Sonic's nearly prone figure against the wall and was feeling almost humiliated. "Sonic, what are you doing on the floor like that? Get up, you're embarrassing yourself."

"Where's Rogue," the doctor asked.

"Oh she's inside, talking to Amy," Knuckles answered.

"I was so stupid," Sonic said, tears starting to form in his eyes again, "how could I possibly do something like that, I was so selfish. I could only think about myself and I ended up putting Amy's life at risk." 

He began sobbing almost uncontrollably, "I don't care how much I despise her or find her annoying, nobody deserves all this. (Except maybe Dr. Eggman!) Now because of me and my stupidity, she'll probably be in this hospital for the rest of her life. I'm . . . . I'm practically a murderer!"

Knuckles, Tails, and Dr. Carbana were very shocked to hear Sonic actually mention such a word, and he was addressing it to himself! 

Knuckles quickly intervened, "don't say that! You are not a murderer. Don't ever call yourself that!"

"Sonic, please don't call yourself that." Tails was starting to feel very hurt and confused from Sonic's words, "you're a great hero. You've saved this entire planet and all of its people. You're the farthest thing from a murderer than anything else."

"Don't blame yourself like this," the doctor said, trying to calm him down, "you'll ruin yourself even further."

"You just don't understand do you? I was one of the victims of that accident and I saw Amy's crushed body. Her blood was virtually squeezed right out her like a squashed grape, and I saw it happen right before my eyes. I even got a good look at her head as it was turned into a shish kabob!" 

Sonic then turned his attention to Knuckles, "you got a good look at Amy didn't you? Can't you see that because of me, more than half of her body is dead? And you're saying that I'm not a murderer? In all of our past dates, I always tell her to leave me alone. A few times I even told her to drop dead! Well it looks like I'm getting what I asked for and now I'm totally regretting it!"

Dr. Carbana, Knuckles, and Tails all realized that Sonic is just too badly depressed right now. Right now, they figured that it's best to leave Sonic alone until he could get some of his grief out of his system. Talking to him right now could depress him even more. Sonic then continued hugging his knees and rocking himself.

Just then, the intercom in Amy's room signaled and the doctor quickly went inside and answered it. "Dr. Carbana," the assistant on the intercom said, sounding slightly frantic, "you've got to come down to the admittance room, we just got a very special patient!"

"You know, there are other trauma doctors besides me," Dr. Carbana stated, "are they also busy?"

"Okay," the assistant replied, "let me put it this way. This may sound like an obvious question but, how many hedgehogs are in this hospital right now?"

"Two of course," Dr. Carbana answered, "there's Sonic and Amy here right now."

"Well that number has just changed to three," the assistant continued, "and you've got to see this in person. This hedgehog seems to be burned completely black, with a little bit of red here and there."

"What!?" Dr. Carbana sounded quite confused and concerned, but decided to check it out anyway. He looked at Rogue who was still talking to Amy, "I'll be right back. There's something I need to check out." He spoke into the intercom again and called for a couple of nurses to keep watch over Amy in case her condition suddenly changes while he's gone. He walked out into the hallway and said the same thing to Tail, Knuckles, and even Sonic (assuming that he was listening) that he said to Rogue. He then ran to an elevator and took it to the ground floor towards the admittance room. 

"My goodness," the doctor said to himself, "what are the odds of having three hedgehogs being in the same hospital? I wonder if there's a connection or something. I just hope that Sonic and the others are doing okay. They have each other, so hopefully that should help." 

The doors finally opened, and he went to check on the new patient.

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Well, I wonder what the new patient could be. Some of you should be able to know almost right away.

Also, a little history lesson:

Sorry, I was supposed to mention this several chapters ago, but I just now remembered. Do you remember Amy's head injury? You know, the metal shard that impaled her head, thereby turning her head into a shish kabob? (uh, sorry for that choice of words!) Did you know that there's a real life equivalent to that? Does the name Phineas Gage ring a bell? He had a similar head injury and lived! 

I have the address for a website that talks about his ordeal. It's not a link, so you'll have to use the copy and paste method. If it doesn't work, then just use your browser and look up the name Phineas Gage. There should be a few more websites about him and they are quite fascinating (and maybe a bit gruesome to some people!) Now you know what Amy's head injury was like, and she survived it!

Here's the address: www.epub.org.br/cm/n02/historia/phineas.htm


	10. Depression Kicks In

Author's Note: Wow! This took me a while to write. With so many set backs and delays, I thought I'd never get this chapter finished! At nearly 6,000 words, this is by far the longest chapter and I'll try to write faster for the next one. Okay, enough with my excuses, here's chapter 10. 

(In the last chapter, Sonic was getting very depressed. But in this chapter, his depression will be at full tilt and he will even try to act upon it. A few fairly major events take place here. I was thinking of splitting this chapter in two, but too many related situations take place here. Splitting the chapter could complicate things).

Chapter 10: Depression Kicks In

After watching the doctor leave, Knuckles, Rogue, and Tails all watched Sonic almost helplessly. He seemed to be getting emotionally torn apart, though he also seemed to have calmed down slightly. They were all afraid that if they leave him like this, he could do something that they would all regret. After several minutes, Rogue broke the silence.

"I'm going to check on Amy." Rogue quickly walked back into Amy's room.

Knuckles and Tails noticed that Sonic was still fighting back tears. Knuckles then decided to say something next.

"You know Sonic, I've never seen you like this. Heck, I never knew that you were even capable of being like this. Why are you acting like this? If I know you well, then I know that you would actually be happy that all of this is happening to Amy. After all, she does annoy you a lot and you probably want this more than anything."

Sonic instantly snapped out of it and almost yelled at Knuckles. "Are you INSANE!?"

Knuckles nearly jumped back from how quickly Sonic reacted.

"Of course she's annoying. She been a nuisance for years and I've always wanted her to suffer at least once for all the trouble she's caused me. Maybe get a broken arm, or better yet a broken leg so that she doesn't chase me around anymore." 

Sonic then pointed into Amy's room, "but this . . . . this is going way too far! I've never asked for anything like this!" 

Tails was very surprised that Sonic is now acting like THIS!

Sonic continued, "In our past dates, she's been a living nightmare almost to no end. I always tell her to leave me alone. I even told her to DROP DEAD or go jump off a bridge a few times and she still ignores it. I guess I'm now getting what I've been asking for . . . and now . . . it doesn't feel right."

"So how do you feel towards Amy right now?" Knuckles asked very curiously.

"Honestly," Sonic answered, "I don't really know. I don't know if I should be celebrating because Amy's finally getting what she deserves, or if I should feel sorry because she's getting way more than I asked for. I mean, she seems to be suffering a fate worse than I could imagine."

Knuckles and Tails were starting to be very worried about his words. They were afraid that he could talk himself crazy if this continues.

Sonic continued, "I still can't believe how stupid I was than night when this all started."

"Stop blaming yourself like this!" Knuckles was starting to get fed up with Sonic accusing himself repeatedly, "this is not your fault. You never suspected that any of this could happen."

"You just don't get it do you?" Sonic replied very bitterly, "you weren't there. You didn't see how careless I was. You didn't see me when I stopped the car in the middle of the highway and jumped out. The least I could have done was park the car on the shoulder and then ditch her. But no, I had to stop the car right in the middle AND during a very thick fog. I might as well put up a sign saying: HIT THIS CAR AND WIN A PRIZE!!"

Knuckles and Tails just stared in disbelief. 

"You know, We've all been trying to get this off my chest for a while but, what were you thinking!?" Knuckles practically screamed, "I mean, were you even thinking at all!?" 

Tails spoke next, "I can't believe this! How . . . how could you?"

Knuckles continued, "I'd never think you would do something stupid like that. The Sonic I know would never be so foolish and careless. Do you realize how much danger you would've caused that night? What if other people got hurt besides just you and Amy (actually a few other people did get hurt at the accident, but luckily they weren't seriously injured at all). Were you willing to put other people in danger just because of your own personal vendetta with Amy?"

Sonic just sat there and took in all of the yelling. He almost looked like he ignored it all. Because of this, Knuckles became very frustrated, "HELLO!? Did you hear anything I just said?"

Knuckles grabbed Sonic and quickly stood him up. And then he practically yelled right at his Sonic's face! Sonic still seemed to ignore him, so Knuckles decided to knock some sense into him, literally. He then punched Sonic right in the gut! Though it wasn't his hardest punch, it still completely knocked the wind out of him! 

Knuckles just blinked in surprise, "why . . . why didn't you try to avoid that? That was a slow punch."

Sonic coughed a few times then a few seconds later he got his breath back. "Because, I deserved that. And yes, I did hear everything you just said and all of it isn't new to me. All of that is in my head right now and it's tearing me apart."

"This is weird," Tails thought to himself, "it's like Amy has taken all the physical damage, but it seems that Sonic is taking all the mental damage."

Sonic starting feeling sick again, "I . . . I got to go. I need some air." 

He quickly ran down the hall nearly crashing into a few nurses. He then rushed down the stairs, out the hospital's main door, and down the sidewalk. Tails was about to run after him, but Knuckles grabbed his shoulder to stop him.

"Let him go. Sonic needs some time to cool off," Knuckles said reassuringly.

"If you ask me," Tails replied, "I think he needs some psychological help. I'm just afraid that with all the problems he's facing right now, he could do something that we'll all regret."

"Let's just hope that it doesn't come to that," Knuckles replied. (Unfortunately, that's exactly what will happen!)

A few seconds later, Rogue walked into the hallway, "hey I just heard some yelling. Are you all fighting again? Wait a minute, where's Sonic?"

"He left to get some air and to cool off," Tails answered.

"Right now I feel like doing the same thing," Knuckles also replied.

"Well I hope he doesn't get into trouble," Rogue said, sounding almost worried.

Rogue then remembered something, "hey, just before the doctor left, I overheard the intercom saying something about another hedgehog. I also heard the word black."

"You know, that's weird," Tails replied, "he just told us that he has another patient. He didn't say anything about another hedgehog."

Rogue continued, "you . . . don't suppose that . . . it could be -"

Knuckles knew where she was getting at, "I know exactly what you mean, and there's only one way to find out. Let's follow where that doctor went."

"I also overheard something about going to the admittance room," Rogue said, "but we don't know where that is."

"Don't worry," Tails said, "I think I know what that means. There's some maps of the hospital all over this place. I can read them pretty well to find where he went."

"Wait a minute," Rogue protested, "we can't just leave Amy all by herself."

"Don't worry," Tails replied, "remember the doctor said that he called some nurses."

"Where are the nurses then?" Rogue asked.

Almost immediately, as if on cue, a pair of nurses finally arrived and entered Amy's room.

"Great," Knuckles said with satisfaction, "now let's go see what's up."

Meanwhile:

Dr. Carbana finally rushed into the trauma center admittance room. He quickly noticed the patient and asked a few questions from the other doctors in the room while putting on some gloves. 

"All right," the doctor stated while looking at all the doctors and assistants in the room, "which one called me through the intercom?" A young doctor and his assistant raised their hands. "Good, can you tell me the diagnosis of the patient?" 

"Okay," the young doctor explained, "we've done some simple body exams. Surprisingly, the patient isn't as badly injured as we thought. There's a fractured right leg that we took an x-ray of, and a very mild concussion. But there doesn't seem to be any serious internal bleeding or any damage to internal organs. The only internal damage found was a couple of broken ribs. However, the burns seem pretty extensive. I mean, look at the patient, the whole body is black. It must be covered with third degree burns if not worse!"

Dr. Carbana took a very close look at the patient. He didn't see very many blisters or anything that would indicate severe burns, but decided to make perfectly sure. He carefully ran his gloved hand over the body and was expecting to have some charred flesh rub off onto his glove like charcoal, but instead it felt like fur! Though it was a bit coarse and kind of spiky. He looked at his glove and saw no charred flesh or anything stuck to the glove. He also noticed that some of the chest fur has been burned away and could see the bare skin under it. The bare skin did have a few minor burns.

Dr. Carbana turned to the young doctor, "didn't you say that he was burned black?"

"Well we didn't exactly check his burns thoroughly," the young doctor answered, "we wanted you to do that since you have much more experience."

"Okay that seems rather careless," Dr. Carbana replied, "there are other trauma doctors besides me you know, however I'm already here. Anyway, this may sound strange, but this patient isn't BURNED black, it IS black."

The doctor's and assistants seemed somewhat shocked.

"A Black hedgehog?" The young doctor seemed rather confused and fascinated.

"Why not?" Dr. Carbana replied, "there's already a pink one and a blue one. I guess it's not too surprising to find a black one."

The doctors just stared in bewilderment. How can three hedgehogs end up in the exact same hospital? Is this fate, or just a strange coincidence?

Dr. Carbana continued, "are the MRI and CAT scanners ready?" They all nodded. "Great, first let's get some snapshots for reference." He then got an instant camera from a nearby shelf. (In case you're wondering, some pictures were taken of Amy as well. This will be explained later on in the story).

Knuckles, Tails, and Rogue all set off towards the admittance room, reading the hospital maps here and there and asking for directions so they don't get lost. After what seemed like hours, they finally found the room. They found the entrance to the admittance room, but before they got to it, Dr. Carbana opened the door and walked out of the room. They almost bumped into each other and they were surprised to see each other here. Dr. Carbana quickly shut the door, they didn't get a chance to see what's inside. 

"Hey, you're not supposed to be here," The doctor said, almost complaining, "that room is only for doctors. What are you doing here anyway?"

Rogue answered first, "we were just curious about your new patient. I overheard some stuff on the intercom you were speaking to earlier."

The doctor was somewhat surprised, "huh? You heard all that?"

Rogue felt slightly insulted, "hello! I'm a bat. I have pretty good hearing you know. Anyway, we have a hunch that we know who your new patient is. We want to take a quick peek to find out for sure."

"Sorry, I can't do that," the doctor protested, "that room is for authorized doctors only, it's very easy to get in the way. However, I can show you these. I took a few pictures while the patient was being sent to the body scanning room." 

The doctor took the photos out of the envelope he was holding. He was going to make copies for possible future reference and data use. They all took a good look at the photos and they were all overjoyed. 

"Yup, that's definitely Shadow," Tails said first. 

"Oh my lord," Rogue said, very shocked and concerned, "what happened? How is he?"

"So far, he doesn't seem to be as badly injured as we thought," the doctor replied, "but he's about to receive some thorough body scans to make perfectly certain."

They all looked at the photos some more and the doctor asked for them back to make some copies. He was just about to walk away when another assistant rushed through the door and called Dr. Carbana over. 

"Doctor! You've got to see this," the assistant seemed very hysterical, "this is just getting weirder and weirder!"

"What's going on?" Dr. Carbana asked while everyone stared curiously.

"You may not believe this," the assistant replied, "but the patient is . . . well . . . he's awake and . . . and he's walking around! And he's not even stumbling or anything!" 

"What!?" Dr. Carbana was very shocked and almost doubtful, "what are you talking about?"

The assistant answered, "we just finished the MRI and CAT scans and then a few seconds later, he just got up!"

"Okay, this seems very weird," Dr. Carbana replied, "I better look into this."

Dr. Carbana rushed back into the door and towards the body scanning room just past the admittance room. Knuckles, Tails, and Rogue just stared and blinked in confusion, barely understanding what just happened. And then a huge realization hit them.

"Hey, wait a minute," Tails spoke first, "didn't Shadow fall through the sky a few years ago? What's he doing here NOW, at this time?"

Knuckles seemed to have a solution, "when he was falling through the atmosphere, he must have activated the chaos control and ended up time traveling to now."

Rogue seemed a bit lost, "wait a second. You mean he vanished from one time period and reappeared in this time period?"

"It's very possible," Knuckles replied, "as far as I know that's got to be the only way that this happened."

Tails was very amazed and very excited, "wow! Wait till Sonic hears about this. He'll freak!"

"Speaking of Sonic," Rogue realized, "we'd better look for him before something happens to him. Hopefully he's back at the apartment or else we'll have a VERY hard time finding him."

Dr. Carbana and the assistant arrived at the body scanning room. What he saw made his jaw drop through the floor! Shadow was indeed walking around, however he was still in a daze and was mumbling to himself. The doctor noted that he was walking around with no sign of a limp and so he decided to investigate. He carefully walked up to the ebony hedgehog and asked as calmly as possible.

"Uh, hello there. Could you please tell me your name?" (The doctor already knows his name from Tails. This is just standard procedure).

Shadow groaned a few times. He still felt very lightheaded and dizzy and also had a pounding headache. All this made it difficult to answer back. 

"S-Shadow, my name is Shadow," he managed to blurt out.

"That's great," the doctor replied to himself, "at least knows his name." The doctor pulled out a chair and asked for Shadow to have a seat before he falls over and hurts himself further since the hospital bed is a bit too high for him. Shadow agreed and stumbled over to the chair and sat down. The doctor decided to check his leg if it is truly healed. He asked Shadow to slowly raise and lower his legs. Shadow explained that he felt almost no pain in his legs. 

The doctor then took out a small rubber hammer and tapped his left kneecap. He noted that Shadow's leg kick up as a reflex. He then tapped the right kneecap (the leg that's supposedly broken) and it too kicked up. The doctor then seemed very creeped out. He looked at his watch and noted the time and was completely shocked.

"But . . . but how? This can't be! It's only been fifteen minutes since he arrived here." He looked at the young doctor, "do you still have that x-ray of his right leg?"

"Of course," the young doctor answered then held up a large envelope, "it's right here."

Dr. Carbana carefully examined the x-ray and immediately noticed the fracture in the leg. He then looked at the results of the body scans and noticed to his surprise that the fracture had completely healed!

"WHAT!? H-how?" The doctor was almost speechless, "this is impossible! How can a fractured leg completely heal in only fifteen minutes?" After looking through the body scan results, no major internal damage was found. The broken ribs have almost completely healed as well! Dr. Carbana and all the other doctors were utterly dumbfounded. This hedgehog seems be defying medical logic!

After searching for several hours, Tails, Knuckles, and Rogue were all very surprised to find Sonic right at the apartment asleep! He didn't go very far at all! 

"Well that was a waste of time," Knuckles complained.

They also noticed a few holes in the walls shaped like a fist. Obviously Sonic has been busy redecorating the walls with his fists!

The following is a tad graphic. Although you're probably used to that by now!

Over the next few days, Shadow made a complete recovery and was going to be discharged very soon. But in Sonic's case, his nights have been torturous. Almost every night, he would have nightmares very similar to the one he had after the accident. Before, they would only come once every week or so, but now it's happening almost every night.

Each nightmare had a few specific differences, but they all had the same idea. In one nightmare, a bunch of monsters took a large drill bit and impaled it through Amy's head. In another nightmare, a long cone shaped spike was stabbed through her head. But since it was cone shaped, it would get wider as it passed further through her head until her head completely split open!

Finally there was one nightmare that was completely different, but it still involved Amy. In this nightmare, Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Rogue, and a few other people were gathered at a funereal for Amy. When Sonic looked into the casket, it totally creeped him out. Not all of her body was in the casket. Instead, about three-quarters of her body was in the casket. Basically, it was Amy's lower half of her body and the upper left part of her body. Her head and upper right part was missing! 

"Hey, w-where's the rest of her, what's this all about," Sonic asked everyone at the funeral. 

Tails turned to him and answered, "this is the part of her body that's dead. The rest of her is still alive, therefore only the dead parts of her body are being buried. If you want to know where the rest of her body is, then just look over there."

Tails pointed at a large group of people that were all gathered together. When Sonic ran up to them, they all moved out of the way, revealing what was behind them. Once again, he was completely freaked out by what he saw. It was indeed the rest of her body. Sonic then realized what he said earlier, about how most of Amy's body is "dead" and only a small part of her was still "alive." 

What he saw in the casket was the obviously the "dead" part. But what he's looking at now is the only remaining "living" part of Amy's body. It was only her head and the upper right part of her body including her right arm! The whole thing was floating in a large tank filled with a strange fluid. There were also tubes and wires connected in order to keep this only remaining part alive! Sonic finally woke up after seeing all this and he was sweating like a rainstorm.

"THAT'S IT!! I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE!!" Sonic yelled so loud that everyone in the apartment woke up.

Knuckles sprung up from his bed, "Hey! What happened? What's going on?"

He and everyone else noticed Sonic sitting up in his bed and holding his head like he was going crazy or something.

"Hey Sonic, are you all right? What's wrong?" Tails asked in a very concerned and slightly worried tone.

"N-nothing," Sonic answered reassuringly, "it was just a bad dream." (That's quite an understatement!) "I'll just go for a walk. I need to clear my head." He quickly dashed out the door before anyone could say anything else.

Rogue just blinked in surprise a few times and looked at the clock. It was nearly five in the morning. It was actually still dark outside and sunrise wouldn't arrive for at least another hour. "Why would Sonic go out for a walk this early?" Rogue asked to herself, "I mean, most people are still asleep right now." 

Since Sonic did a rude awakening for everyone, they all decided to pay another visit to Amy and see how she's doing. Visiting hours at the hospital isn't until seven in the morning, so they still have to wait two long hours.

Rogue asked her question again, this time out loud. "What would he be doing going out at a time like this?"

"Beats me," Knuckles replied, "I got a good look at his face and it was nothing short of terrified. Most likely he had another one of his nightmares. I guess he's just out so he can get some fresh air and help calm himself down. If you ask me, I think he needs some serious help, although I doubt that he'll admit it."

After running around town for nearly an hour and nearly crashing into various objects due to the poor lighting (even the street light weren't good enough!), Sonic finally slowed down to a walking pace. He started contemplating about all the nightmares that he's been constantly having and that weird nightmare about Amy's funeral. Finally, he decided that if he could at least have a long talk with Amy, maybe the nightmares would go away. He figured that it was at least worth a shot. 

After walking around a bit more to calm himself down, he checked his watch (Tails designed a watch for him so he doesn't always have to ask about the time). It was only a few minutes before visiting hours started, so he carefully rushed towards the hospital. 

At exactly 7 AM, the visiting hours opened and Knuckles, Tails, and Rogue entered Amy's room. When they arrived though, there was already somebody in there, and it was Shadow himself!

Knuckles spoke first, "hey, what're you doing here? Aren't supposed to be in a hospital bed or something?"

"I just got discharged from this hospital a few minutes ago," Shadow replied, "I also heard about Amy's problems from some of the nurses. It seems that Amy is a celebrity here. Anyway, I decided to pay her a visit as well."

He also explained to them how he used the chaos control at the last moment to time travel. However, he had trouble concentrating while falling through the atmosphere, but it just so happens that he appeared at this time period anyway. Rogue giggled slightly since Shadow looked a little silly with most of his chest fur burned away. The bare skin was almost the some coloration as Sonic's belly. He told them that his chest fur should grow back in a few weeks. They were all very amazed that Shadow made such a quick recovery.

Tails decided to visit Dr. Carbana's office (with his permission of course) and started occupy himself by reading some of the health and doctor's books. (He's been doing this out of curiosity for the past few days). Meanwhile, just a couple blocks away, Sonic was leaning against a light post and started thinking about what he'll actually do. 

"What am I going to say," he asked himself, "I can't stop this lingering guilt inside me and these nightmares are getting out of hand! I don't care if she can understand me or not, but I've got to at least give her a long talk, maybe I'll feel a little better after that. If not I . . . I guess I'll have to swallow my pride and find some help. I'll do anything to end these nightmares!"

Sonic almost arrived at the main doors of the hospital. Since visiting hours have just barely opened, there was hardly anyone outside or around the hospital, and it was relatively quiet. That all changed before he took another step, he heard some yelling from behind and noticed a man carrying a bag and a gun! He also noticed two policemen in the distance that were yelling and chasing the man. Sonic wasn't exactly in the mood to play hero right now, but decided to do something anyway. 

Sonic noticed a small trashcan next to him and he hid behind it. When the man ran by the trashcan, Sonic quickly stuck his foot out and kicked the man's legs and tripped him. When the man fell over the gun flew out of his hand and landed in the trashcan. Some trash covered the gun, so it was hidden from sight. It was done so fast that the cops didn't even see what exactly happened, they thought that the man just tripped and fell on his own.

When the cops caught up the man (he turned out to be a simple ordinary thief, if there is such a thing), they quickly cuffed him up and took him away. (Surprising, they didn't notice that his gun was missing). Sonic stayed hidden behind the trashcan, he didn't want any attention to distract him right now. After they all left, he got out and looked around. There still wasn't anyone around!

"Wow," Sonic said to himself, "I never noticed how dead it could be around here at this time."

Just then, a strong breeze blew by and removed the trash that covered the gun. Just before he turned around to continue towards the hospital, he noticed the gun in the trashcan. He felt inclined to leave it alone and just continue on, but the gun almost seemed to call his name. Sonic just stared at it some more and an almost evil grin appeared on his face. Moments later, Sonic got a really STUPID idea.

Meanwhile, in Amy's room, everyone tried talking to Amy including Shadow. A few seconds later, Dr. Carbana entered the room and greeted everyone, including his former patient. 

"I'm sorry that I have to leave right away," Dr. Carbana said suddenly, "my shift is over right now. Normally I work on the evening/night shift, but there were some problems with some incoming patients so I had to work a little overtime. I least I get to say good bye to all of you before I go home."

He then waved good bye and left the room. He then almost forgot about Tails and he quickly went back to his office. Knuckles also left the room to go to a nearby liquor store and buy some ice cream for Amy (he wanted to do something nice for once, and he wasn't very comfortable with the hospital cafeteria food).

Rogue heard some commotion out the window and noticed a man being taken away by two policemen. She then noticed Sonic coming out from behind a small trashcan and was just standing on the sidewalk. 

"Well it's about time Sonic arrived," she said to herself, "I thought he wasn't even coming. And why's he staring at that trashcan for? Did he forget or lose something in it?"

(Too bad that she has no idea what's about to happen!)

Sonic stared at the gun in the trashcan and sort of studied it from where he stood. It was a simple semi-automatic pistol, but it also had a suppressor attached. So now if the gun went off, it would make very little sound. Sonic's grin just got wider after seeing this (too bad he's facing away from the hospital, otherwise Rogue would have seen the look on his face). Sonic slowly reached for the gun while Rogue was wondering why he's digging in a trashcan like a bum. She actually found it slightly amusing! He finally held the gun in his hands (his body is still blocking Rogue's view) and eyed it like a child staring at candy in a store. He looked around and noticed that there was still nobody around.

"Yes! Now's my chance," Sonic thought almost desperately to himself, "no more nightmares and no more feeling guilty." 

(OH NO!! He's not thinking straight again!)

He didn't bother to hide, they would eventually find his body anyway. Besides, he wanted to end this right here and right now and didn't want to waste time finding a hiding spot. (The trashcan could have been one hiding spot, then again he's not thinking properly anyway.)

Meanwhile, Dr. Carbana got Tails out of his doctor's office. Tails wanted to walk with the doctor while he leaves the hospital so he can talk to him a little about Amy's condition. The doctor thought it was okay, since it was just until they reach the hospital's main doors. While walking towards the main hospital doors, they noticed that Knuckles had just barely walked through it ahead of them.

(Knuckles POV)

Knuckles walked outside the hospital main doors to go to the liquor store. He spotted Sonic was about to wave at him when he noticed a gun in his hand! Also, to his horror, he raised the gun to his head! He quickly rushed at Sonic to stop him, being careful not to startle him or else he might pull the trigger before Knuckles reaches him.

(Back to Sonic)

Sonic quickly put the gun to his right temple and tried to pull the trigger. But for some reason he hesitated to do so. He began to reconsider what he's doing, but his stupid mind has been made up. So he closed his eyes tightly and was about to pull the trigger for real to end his life. 

But before he could, he heard a familiar voice speaking to him. "You know, that's the most selfish thing I've ever seen you do."

Sonic opened his eyes and saw Knuckles staring right at him. He became so tense that he couldn't move his finger to pull the trigger. 

"I always thought that you were a hero," Knuckles continued, "but I never knew that you were this cowardly. So you're trying to take the easy way out, huh? Do you realize how we'd all feel if you killed yourself. Well, what do you have to say for yourself?"

Sonic just stared in disbelief. "Uhh . . . um . . ." 

That was all he could say at that moment. Seeing that he was distracted, Knuckles took advantage and tried to snatch the gun away. Unfortunately, he was a bit too slow, but at least Sonic moved the gun away from his head before the gun went off. Since the suppressor was still on, no one heard the gun shoot, except for Rogue. Despite the gun being suppressed, her superior hearing picked up the sound anyway. She looked out the window again and saw Sonic and Knuckles wrestling each other with a loaded gun in hand! 

She quickly opened the window and jumped out to ambush Sonic (she can fly and glide of course). But before she reached then, the gun went off again and the bullet went through her left wing, disabling it. She still managed to land on the sidewalk using only one wing, but she landed flat on her back and bruised herself badly. "Well that didn't go very well," she thought to herself.

Meanwhile, Tails and Dr. Carbana reached the main door. Before they walked through, Tails decided to ask a question first.

"Um, doctor? In your opinion, how is Amy doing so far."

The doctor didn't even hesitate, "it's hard to say at this time. It's like she's getting better and worse at the same time. But overall, I believe she's getting better which is quite fascinating."

They continued and walked through the main doors.

"What do you mean she's getting better and worse?" Tails asked curiously.

But before the doctor could answer, they both heard some struggling nearby. To their horror, they saw Sonic and Knuckles struggling with a gun! They also saw Rogue getting up, being slightly dazed and with her left wing bleeding!

Tails ran towards them and was about to call out Sonic's name to at least distract him or make him stop. Dr. Carbana was about to go and call security. Before any of this happened though, an unlikely action occurred.

Knuckles made the mistake of holding onto the gun's suppressor to get a good grip. The suppressor broke off and the gun's barrel rested right on Knuckles shoulder. The line of sight for the bullet was just perfect to "hit THREE birds with one stone." 

This time when the gun fired, it made a loud bang since the suppressor broke off. The bullet went STRAIGHT THROUGH Knuckles right shoulder. The bullet continued and hit Tails' right ear, completely blowing it off in a spray of flesh and blood. Finally, the bullet continued and hit Dr. Carbana in the right chest just barely missing his heart.

Knuckles grabbed onto his injured shoulder, "AHH, you . . you son of a -"

"S-sonic!" Tails interrupted, "w-why!?" He grabbed onto his now nonexistent right ear. (Or where it used to be!)

Sonic was so dumbfounded by what just happened that his grip on the gun finally loosened. In fact the gun completely slipped out of his hand and Knuckles grabbed it (with his good arm) before it hit the ground. Knuckles emptied all the bullets into the trashcan, then carefully placed the gun on the sidewalk. He then stomped on the gun so hard that there was a footprint in the concrete and the gun was completely flat!

Knuckles then did something rather desperate and somewhat dumb, but he had to do something to stop Sonic in case he tries something else. Seeing that Sonic was totally shocked and distracted, he took advantage of this. He then grabbed Sonic and head butted him very hard! So hard that he knocked him out cold! Unfortunately, he forgot that Sonic's head is also quite hard and he almost gave himself a concussion! (Wow, I wonder how Sonic is then.)

The loud bang quickly captured Shadow's attention and he raced down the steps (not bothering with the elevator). His jaw just dropped from all the carnage in front of him. "Hey! What's going on? WHAT HAPPENED!?"

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My goodness! It seems like everyone is getting hurt in this chapter. Don't worry though, none of them are too seriously injured. 

Also, I'll try to be swifter with the next chapter. I've already got the main ideas for the next chapter in my head right now.


	11. One More Nightmare, Honestly!

Author's Note: Wow! This took a lot longer than I thought. (Of course I didn't anticipate my hard drive breaking down and ending up spending weeks trying to find a replacement and the proper software! I could buy a new computer all together, but too bad I don't have the money for that.)

Oh, and one more thing. In case anyone had misunderstood what happened near the end of chapter 10, Sonic did not intentionally shoot his own friends. That entire event was a freak accident. (Especially where Knuckles, Tails, and Dr. Carbana all got hit by ONE bullet). Sonic was trying to shoot himself out of desperation and yet his friends end up getting hurt instead. 

Okay, enough of that. Here's the next chapter.

Chapter 11: One More Nightmare

Shadow just stared at the sight before him. The first thing he saw was Sonic lying flat on his back with a pretty good-sized lump on the forehead. Next he noticed Knuckles holding his badly bleeding right shoulder and he was shaking his head rapidly, fighting off some dizziness. Rogue was getting up and dusting herself off, while examining her bleeding wing and fighting off the pain. He also noticed Tails was tightly holding his head where his ear was and blood was seeping through between his fingers. Finally, he saw Dr. Carbana lying on his back right in front of him with a bloody chest. (I'm surprised that he didn't notice the doctor first!)

Tails was clutching his head as tightly as possible and knew that he was bleeding badly. He remembered while reading through some of Dr. Carbana's health books that one good thing to do when bleeding badly is to stay calm. (Actually, you should stay calm in any emergency!) He learned that if you tense up or panic, your heart will beat faster and your blood pressure will increase. This will cause you to bleed even faster. Because of this, Tails sat down for a minute while doing breathing exercises to calm himself down as much as possible and to avoid panic. After a few seconds his bleeding reduced. He was going to walk back into the hospital for treatment since sitting there isn't going to help much. (He didn't want to risk running or else he could bleed to death before getting any help). While walking towards the main doors, Rogue walked with him and pulled out a handkerchief to wrap his head.

Dr. Carbana quickly reached into his pockets (while he still has the energy) and pulled out a bundle of cards and a pencil. He found a certain card and started writing on it. Shadow saw this and tried to stop him.

"Doctor you've been shot. Please stay still and save your strength."

"No, I have to do this," the doctor protested, "I'm sure that the security heard that gunshot and they'll be here any second. This is the only way that I can keep Sonic from being framed for attempted murder."

The doctor finished writing and handed the card to Shadow. "Find the doctor that's on this card and give it to him, he should know what to do next. Hurry!"

Shadow nodded and ran back into the hospital with the card. Knuckles saw the whole conversation and stumbled over towards the doctor to find out what's going on. Knuckles saw the doctor and noticed his prone form. "Doctor! Are you all right? How bad is it?"

The doctor opened his coat and examined his wound. "I'm sure the bullet has missed my heart, but I think my lung has been hit."

"Do you think you'll live?" Knuckles asked with some concern, "I mean it's pretty embarrassing to have a doctor die right in front of his own hospital."

Knuckles and the doctor noticed that a crowd is starting to form around the scene. (Oh sure! NOW there are people around!)

The doctor replied, "I'm not quite sure how extensive the injury is. I doubt that the wound is fatal. But even if I live, there's a good chance that I'll be out of commission for quite a while. This is why I sent Shadow into the hospital. There's no other doctor that I would trust with Amy than the one I'm trying to contact."

"Who is that?" Knuckles asked curiously. 

"His name is Dr. Renoltis," the doctor answered, "he has slightly less experience than me, but he's just as skilled."

Shadow found some doctors in the lobby area. He quickly and almost frantically asked them about the doctor on the card. The doctors recognized the name "Dr. Renoltis" right away. Shadow also asked about the other writings on the card that Dr. Carbana just wrote. One of the doctors went to an intercom to call Dr. Renoltis while another doctor explained the writings. 

"What's going on outside? I heard a gunshot," one of the doctors spoke.

"A doctor has been shot outside," Shadow said, feeling a bit calmer, "and he sent me to find this doctor for him."

"This was sent by Dr. Carbana, wasn't it?" The doctor seemed pretty sure about himself.

"How do know?" Shadow was a bit surprised.

The doctor continued, "it's about this writing. I can't understand it but I can tell that it's in ancient Greek. Dr. Carbana and Dr. Renoltis are the only two doctors in this hospital that are fluent in ancient Greek.

"Hey, did anyone call me?" A doctor about the same age as Dr. Carbana showed up in the lobby.

"You're Dr. Renoltis aren't you?" Shadow quickly asked. 

"That I am," the doctor simply responded.

Shadow breathed a sigh of relief and handed the card Dr. Renoltis. 

"Well this is my card," Dr. Renoltis said while looking over the card. He then flipped it over, "ah, now this is interesting."

After that, a group of half a dozen security guards passed right by them and out the main doors towards the shooting scene. They were followed by four doctors who were instructed by the security to stay in the lobby until the coast is clear.

(Meanwhile)

"I'm so sorry doctor," Knuckles said almost regretfully, "I can't believe that Sonic would actually try and kill himself. I mean I know he's been depressed for a while, but I never thought that he would go this far."

"No, I don't think you should put all the blame on him. This is mostly my fault actually," the doctor replied.

"Huh!?" Knuckles seemed a bit stunned, "how could you have anything to do with all this?"

"I have reason to believe that I drove him into being like this," the doctor replied.

"What!? How do you know? Why would you say something like that?"

"Because," the doctor answered, "this isn't the first time something like this has happened in my career."

Knuckles just stared and blinked in surprise.

The doctor continued, "the one part of my job that I can never get used to is breaking the bad news to a patient's family and friends. Some of these people have gone insane after hearing all the bad news from me. In fact, it's happened six times before in my career. Two of those incidents ended in a shootout, but this is the first time that I got hit."

"Well you see, to Sonic, Amy isn't family . . . . or a friend at all," Knuckles said almost regretfully.

"That may be so," Dr. Carbana replied, "but wasn't he having nightmares? All these things that happened to Amy could be having a subconscious effect. Therefore, please don't put the blame on Sonic, I'm just getting what's coming to me."

"Please doctor, stop blaming yourself," Knuckles thought to himself, "you were just doing your job."

Just before Tails and Rogue walked into the hospital main doors, the security guards came running through and they surveyed the area. They noticed Dr. Carbana's prone form and Sonic lying on his back. They knew from the security tapes that he started this event. (A nearby security camera captured the whole situation.) They checked the place to make sure that there was no weapon around, they found the gun on the pavement. (Though it was flat as a pancake since Knuckles stomped on it and they knew that it was harmless.) Before they did anything else, Dr. Renoltis and Shadow called their attention. 

Dr. Carbana managed to summon enough strength to explain Sonic's actions to the security guards and how he drove him into acting like. Dr. Renoltis used the card that Dr. Carbana wrote to vouch for him. Surprisingly the security bought the explanation, and they called the doctors that waited behind to help out Sonic and his friends.

Shadow turned to Dr. Renoltis, "hey, what exactly did that card say?" He sounded a bit curious.

"It's kind of difficult to translate into modern words," Dr. Renoltis replied, "basically it says: This is my fault. I press no charges. And knowing what just happened, I figured out what he was trying to say about the situation."

Both Sonic and Dr. Carbana were taken into the hospital on a stretcher. Both Tails and Rogue were wheeled in with a wheelchair while Knuckles preferred to walk in.

The next day (after some overnight treatment) Knuckles, Tails, and Rogue were brought into Amy's room to visit her while Shadow and Dr. Renoltis joined them. She was still asleep, so the doctor took this opportunity to give them a report. Rogue had some bandages covering her injured wing. Tails had some bandages covering the top-right part of his head including the area where his right ear used to be. Knuckles was a bit of a mess though. He had a sling on his right arm and some bandages covering his right shoulder. He also had a couple large band-aids on his forehead.

"Well thankfully, none of you sustained any life-threatening injuries," the doctor reported, "Rogue has a broken wing and had some stitches on it. Miraculously, Tails didn't receive any head injuries. Although he completely lost his right ear, it's nothing that a little reconstructive operation can't fix. Knuckles on the other hand did receive some fairly serious injuries, however despite his injuries he's a very amazing character."

Everyone including Knuckles blinked in surprise at what the doctor was trying to say.

The doctor continued, "okay Knuckles, you said that the gun barrel was right on your shoulder when it went off, right? In that case it's quite amazing that you still have your arm at all. Wow, you must have a very tough body to withstand that!"

"Well I was born with a strong body and I practice martial arts a lot," Knuckles replied.

"But that's not all," the doctor continued, "your head injury is quite peculiar."

"I guess using a head butt to knock out Sonic was a bit dumb," Knuckles replied, sounding slightly embarrassed, "but what's so strange about it?"

The doctor scratched his head a little, "you see, Sonic was the one that got KO'ed, right? Lucky for him, he didn't receive any head injuries except for a rather large lump on the forehead, but you are another story. You actually have a couple small fractures in your skull!"

"Huh! How did that happen," Knuckles and the others seemed quite puzzled including the doctor.

"I have no idea," the doctor answered, "it makes no sense. Sonic got KO'ed without any head injuries, but you sustained some skull fractures and yet you remained conscious!"

"I guess Sonic's head must be harder than I thought," Knuckles replied, "I did get a pretty big headache though, but it's nothing I can't handle." 

Shadow decided to change the subject, "anyways, how's Sonic? Did he get any other injuries?"

"Nope," the simply replied, "he didn't receive any other injuries. Although he does have a very slight concussion, he should be up within an hour or two."

Rogue asked next, "how is Dr. Carbana?"

"He's actually doing surprisingly well," Dr. Renoltis answered, "and we managed to get the bullet out of his lung without any problems. Luckily his lung wasn't damaged beyond repair, so he should be up and back to work within two weeks."

"Ah, that great to hear," Knuckles replied.

"Hey Tails," the doctor said, in a slightly anxious tone, "you said that Dr. Carbana had something to tell you just before he got shot, right." Tails nodded and then the doctor continued, "I talked to Dr. Carbana on his hospital bed earlier and he told me what he tried to tell you. I knew exactly what he was talking about so I'll tell you for him. Actually I think you should all know."

Rogue spoke first, "what, is this about Amy again? Is it really serious?"

The doctor rubbed his chin a little, "uh, . . well . . um . . yes, it is about Amy. It's not exactly that serious because we've got it under control, but it is a cause for concern so I figured that you should know that way there will be no surprises. I just don't want you all to get worried for nothing."

They all seemed ready and Knuckles spoke, "okay doc, shoot." As soon as he said that, everyone's eyes stared right at Knuckles. He quickly remembered what happened yesterday, "I-I-I mean just tell us." 

The doctor took a deep breath, "you all know that Amy's body has been completely messed up. Even now, many months after she was admitted to this hospital, the effects are still lingering on. Her biggest problem now is that all of her body functions, hormone levels, and even her immune system are very unstable. To counteract this, she's taking various medications that should help stabilize her health. The trouble is that we can't just give her medications at any time."

Tails interrupted, "what's wrong with that?"

The doctor continued, "have you all heard the old saying: if it isn't broken, don't fix it? If we give her any medication that she doesn't need at the moment, she could have some serious reactions or probably overdose. What's making this difficult is that her body functions are changing continuously, sometimes on an hourly basis. For example, sometimes her immune system will suddenly completely shut down, so we give her antibiotics to help her immune system, but sometimes it tricks us. Sometimes it only shuts down partially, sometimes it seems that it has completely shut down and then suddenly turns on again when were about to administer the antibiotics. This goes the same for her other systems and body functions. But don't worry we're being very cautious."

Amy finally woke up and gave a weak smile to everyone in the room. The doctor was about to call an assistant to help move Amy onto her wheelchair. 

Amy looked around some more and struggled hard to speak, "w-w-wwwheeeere's S-S-Sooonnniiiiic?" (It took almost an entire lungful of air just to say that!)

Apparently she didn't know what happened yesterday and the entire group decided to keep it that way for now. 

(Once again I feel obligated to warn you: The following is very disturbing. Of course that's probably a matter of opinion, I just wanted to let you know anyways).

Once again, Sonic is having another nightmare, but this one is completely different than any of the others. This one involves not just Amy, but also Rogue, Knuckles, and even Tails.

Again Sonic is chained onto a large stone slab, being forced to watch the entire gruesome display. Again he saw Amy chained down on another stone slab near him. Out of the darkness, Sonic saw something long and shiny appear. It turned out to be a very long metal spike or stake! It was about ten feet long, but only about three inches wide. There were no monsters around, but there seemed to be some invisible force maneuvering the stake. 

The pointed end of the stake rested on Amy's right temple. She thrashed around desperately to avoid the it, but she was chained down very tightly and she even had a strange metal collar around her neck that somehow kept her from moving her head. Without warning, the giant metal pointed rod quickly and completely impaled her head, going into her right temple and out the top of her head near her left ear. Immediately her eyes nearly popped out of her head and red blood vessels sprung up in her eyes. Since she couldn't squirm around much, all she can do give a blood-curdling scream of mortal agony.

Normally, this is where these nightmares of his would end. But not this time, this was totally different. Sonic could still hear her screaming and he tried to fight against them. He was hoping that this nightmare would end right now and he tried to wake himself up, but the nightmare just didn't want to end. Finally after what seemed like forever, he noticed that her screams were going down. After everything fell silent, he looked towards Amy and noticed that the metal rod was still impaled through her head. Just when he thought the nightmare would finally end, what happened next completely freaked him out even further.

Suddenly, all of the chains that held her down including the metal collar were released. The metal stake floated up into the air with Amy's still stuck to it! She is now literally hanging by her head! Sonic stared in utter disbelief, he could tell that she was lifeless. Blood was seeping out of her nose and mouth and dripping all over her dress. He looked into her eyes and didn't even see the smallest sign of life. Despite that, her body was still twitching violently and having convulsions.

Sonic saw something else in the darkness. He saw three figures hanging by their arms. After his eyes adjusted some more, he noticed that they were his friends! First was Rogue and she had another set of chains that held her wings outstretched. Behind her was Tails and he was screaming for help and also had some chains wrapped around his two tails. Finally, behind him was his old rival Knuckles who had a rather brave look on his face. (Not for long!) Sonic also noticed that they all had another set of chains around their ankles, therefore they are all in a vertical sprawled position.

The metal stake rose up and positioned itself right in front of the group (with Amy's lifeless body still stuck to it!) What Sonic saw next completely horrified him. The ten-foot long stake suddenly began to lengthen at an incredible rate, yet it all seemed to happen in slow motion. The stake shot forward and stabbed right trough everyone through the chest. They were all screaming in pain and just when it couldn't get any worse, their chains unfastened and now they're hanging on it! The stake is now a good thirty feet long or so and the whole thing looked like a giant shish kabob stick! Blood started pouring out of their nose and mouth and splattered onto the metal rod that had impaled them.

Sonic finally had far more than enough. He summoned every once of will power and screamed as loud as he could. He finally snapped awake and the scream he made was heard throughout the entire building. Even his friends in Amy's room heard it including Dr. Renoltis and Dr. Carbana from his hospital bed.

Everyone (except Dr. Carbana who still has to stay in bed) rushed into his room and they found him completely soaked in sweat and breathing harder than he ever did before.

Knuckles spoke first, "another nightmare again, eh Sonic?"

Rogue nudged him hard in the ribs, "hey, don't rub it in alright? Hey Sonic, did you see what happened? Would you like to talk about it?"

Sonic finally caught his breath, "nah, it's just another nightmare. It's just all this stress around me. I'll . . I'll be fine."

Dr. Renoltis spoke next, "I've got great news. You don't have any significant head injuries of brain damage. You're healthy enough to leave now."

Over the entire week, everyone's injuries have almost healed. Tails got a new ear, and though it was made of organic plastic, it was better than nothing. Rogue's wing has almost healed while Knuckles' shoulder continued mending. Miraculously, Sonic's nightmares have mysteriously stopped. (However, this doesn't mean that the nightmares are through with him.)

Sonic visited Rogue in her room and noticed that she was feeling much better and was about to be discharged from the hospital. Rogue then made a suggestion, "let's get out of this building and get some fresh air. I know a Chinese food restaurant nearby and I think you should try it for once. Dr. Renoltis said it's okay to go out as long as we're careful since we haven't fully recovered yet. We plan on buying some of that food for Amy as well since I don't exactly like the food here."

Rogue, Knuckles, Tails, and Shadow stopped at the nearby Chinese restaurant. Sonic decided to go, even though he's more used to eating chili dogs. After finding a seat, they all had a hard time figuring out what to order. Rogue decided to order for all of them since she somehow seemed to know the food in the place very well.

As soon as their order arrived, everyone dug in, . . . . except for Sonic. He just stared at his plate in horror and quickly started turning pale. 

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If it makes you all feel any better (I think), this is the last major nightmare that Sonic will have. It's almost obvious that this nightmare sequence is strongly based on the shooting scene near the end of chapter 10.

Also, about the end of chapter 10, if you think about it history has repeated itself in a way. Back in chapter 2, Sonic was so stressed out that the only thing on his mind was getting away from Amy at almost any cost. His decision nearly cost Amy her life and could of cost the lives of twelve other people that night. (Lucky for them, those other people only got scrapes and bruises).

In chapter 10, Sonic was so depressed and desperate that his decision to try and kill himself at any cost nearly cost the lives of his own friends and a doctor. 


	12. The Nightmares Come True!

Author's Note: Wow! I finally got a chance to update this.

If this is your first time reading this fic and for some reason skipped to this chapter, you may want to at least read chapters 2,3,5, and 8 to have some understanding of what Amy's body has been through.

Chapter 12: The Nightmares Come True!

Sonic started sweating bullets, but his order was very simple. Some fried rice, some noodles, sweet and sour chicken, and mixed vegetables. But on top of all that was a living nightmare. It was nothing more than an ordinary shish kabob stick with four pieces of beef stuck to it.

Rogue noticed Sonic was just staring at the shish kabob. She also noticed that he was sweating badly and was starting to turn a slight pale green! "Sonic what's the matter with you? It's not going to a bite you or anything. It's just four pieces of meat on a wooden stick. Hello? Anybody there?"

Sonic was completely deaf to her words. He immediately began to recall everything from his nightmare earlier. Before his very eyes, each piece of meat suddenly transformed into the gruesome bodies of his friends and he could still hear them screaming. Finally he snapped out of his gruesome trance and heard Rogue's words but still ignored them.

Sonic quickly got up, "I . . . I, uh . . . I'm not exactly in the mood for Chinese food right now. I think I'll stick with chilidogs instead." He got out of his seat and ran out the door before anyone protested.

"I don't think he's coming back here anytime soon, "Rogue commented.

"Oh well," Shadow didn't seem to care at the moment, "no use letting his food go to waste then." He reached over and grabbed Sonic's plate, then dumped the food onto his own plate and continued eating.

Knuckles got up, "I'm following him. I don't want another incident like last time. I think I have a hunch about where he went." He then quickly up and ran out the door and then in the same direction Sonic went. Rogue managed to stop him just in time to tell him about her observations on Sonic while they were eating and then Knuckles nodded and continued on his way.

Luckily, it didn't take very long for Knuckles to find him. Just as he figured, he found him at a chilidog stand just a few blocks away from the restaurant. When he got closer, he noticed something that seemed out of the ordinary for Sonic. 

"Hey Sonic! Why'd you run off like that? I've heard of 'eat and run' but you just simply ran." 

Knuckles noticed Sonic seemed very deep in thought and was playing with his chilidog in front of him. 

Knuckles continued, "uh, Sonic? How many of those chilidogs did you order?" 

"One," Sonic simply stated.

Knuckles found this simple situation to be very strange. Normally Sonic would buy a dozen or so chili dogs without showing any signs of being full. He also noticed that the one chilidog that Sonic ordered was only half eaten! Knuckles knew that something was very wrong in order for this to happen. He looked at Sonic again and noticed that he was once again deep in thought, but also seemed somewhat alert. Obviously something or many things were on his mind.

"Hey, uh Sonic," Knuckles sounded a bit concerned, "Rogue told me what she saw about you back at the restaurant. I actually caught a glimpse of you too, but I thought you were just shocked to see that other foods exist besides chilidogs. But she even told me that you grew very pale and that you were about to throw up on the plate or something."

"It's nothing much," Sonic replied, "I guess I'm just so used to chilidogs that my stomach can't handle anything else."

He was about to get up and leave a half-eaten chilidog! Knuckles knew that this was just not like Sonic to do that. Knuckles quickly stopped Sonic before he could get up.

"Sonic, what's the matter with you? Since this morning, you've been acting strangely. Heck, you've been acting strangely ever since the accident."

"Really, it's nothing serious," Sonic's voice indicated that he was obviously in denial.

"Sonic, don't give me that. I'm not sure why you're acting so unusual lately. Is it because of those nightmares you been having?"

"It's nothing I can't handle," Sonic still had a strong sound of denial in his voice.

"Look Sonic," Knuckles became very insistent, "I may not be a psychologist or something, but I want to know what's going on. You can start by telling me about these nightmares that you've been having."

Sonic sighed deeply, "all right, but don't blame me if you end up having nightmares yourself." 

Sonic then told Knuckles about his nightmares with as much detail as he could remember. Obviously, Knuckles was very surprised by shat he said, but at least Sonic had finally talked to someone about it and he was starting to feel a lot better. 

"Don't mention any of this to the others," Sonic insisted, "at least not now, especially to Tails. I don't want him to suddenly have any nightmares as well."

Knuckles returned to the others while Sonic decided to go back to the hospital and spend a little time with Amy, maybe even talk with her. (Even though she can't speak or respond properly, in fact her voice is actually getting worse and worse). Every time Sonic visits her, he would usually just sit down and watch her attentively, something that he never thought he would ever do. He could never come up with anything to say to her.

When he finally arrived at the hospital, and then to Amy's room, he saw that Amy was awake and alert and decided to speak to her. It's been a year and a half (or two months after she awoke from her coma) and she has never heard him speak to her once. He would start by at least apologizing for causing all of these situations. But for Sonic, this could be very difficult. Amy might have played a part in her own injuries by not moving out of the way in time. But it's still very reckless and a danger to Amy and other people on the road by stopping a car in the middle of a highway.

Sonic noticed that the others haven't returned from the Chinese restaurant took a good look at Amy's current form. She was in her bed, but she was awake and alert, sort of. Sonic walked up to her bedside and looked at her head. He began to visualize the big chunk of metal that impaled her head at the accident scene, thereby damaging her brain and causing a whole chain of physical and mental problems. 

Sonic then took a deep breath, "Amy? I-I don't know if can understand this but, I . . . I, uh . . . have something to say before it may be too late."

(This part may be a bit depressing. If it makes any of you happy at all, there's nothing really graphic this time.)

He took another deep breath and then opened his mouth to try and apologize. But before he could say anything, Amy suddenly stiffened up like a wooden board and her face was immediately full of agony. To her, it felt like a bunch of knives were stabbing her relentlessly from the inside! She immediately started screaming at the top of her lungs (lung actually, since she only has one right now) which alerted a bunch of doctors and nurses to her room. Knuckles and the others, who were just outside the hospital at the moment also heard Amy screaming and they rushed in. 

Dr. Renoltis was talking to Dr. Carbana and they also heard it. But Carbana still had to stay on the bed, so Renoltis agreed to check it out. On the way to Amy's room, he ran into Knuckles and the gang and they all entered the room together. As Dr. Carbana lay in his hospital bed and continued listening to Amy's cries of pain, he looked straight up at the ceiling. 

"Oh no! I hope my medical predictions aren't coming true again. Oh Emily, I . . I hope that I don't fail again. I feel so useless in this bed. I guess I'll just have to put my trust in Dr. Renoltis until I fully recover."

Sonic just stared, wide-eyed and completely surprised. He had no idea what just happened. He was about to ask what was happening when Knuckles and the others entered the room along with Dr. Renoltis. Amy continued to squirm and scream in pain. She also started flailing her arms around and was clenching her teeth so hard that the doctors were afraid that they could break. 

The doctors and nurses had no choice but to strap her down on the bed or else she could hurt herself or anyone around her. They also managed to squeeze in a rubber mouthpiece so that she doesn't accidentally bite off her own tongue. Even with the mouthpiece her muffled screams were just as loud. They also managed to place a neck brace to keep her from moving her head so much, otherwise she could end up spraining or breaking her own neck.

Just then, while Sonic stared on, he had a very startling realization. While watching Amy in her bed and seeing the pain that she was in, it quickly reminded him about his nightmares. Sonic immediately started going pale and started hyperventilating. It's like he was experiencing his nightmares again, but this time in real life! He then held his head and started groaning. He felt like his sanity was leaving.

Dr. Renoltis noticed that the room was getting crowded and he ordered the doctors and nurses to leave the room except for one doctor and a couple of nurses. Knuckles noticed that Sonic was holding his head like he was having a huge migraine and Knuckles realized what was happening. Shadow and Knuckles helped him out of the room into the hallway where Rogue and Tails were waiting. They could all still hear Amy screaming and crying, despite having a rubber mouthpiece.

Sonic was still holding his head and groaning. Tails was horrified to see him like this. "Hey, what's going on?" Tails was almost hysterical, "what's happening with Amy? Why . . . why's Sonic acting like this?"

"It's . . . it's just like in my nightmares," Sonic stated suddenly, almost as if talking to himself.

Shadow grabbed him and shook him a bit to bring him back to reality. "What's the matter with you? What's this all about?" 

Sonic continued, "it's just like in my nightmares! The way she's strapped down on the bed. Even the way she's screaming!"

Tails was very hysterical, "Sonic, please stop! What's this all about? Is this about those nightmares that you keep refusing to tell us about?"

Rogue also agreed, "yeah, I noticed that he keeps denying that it's nothing. But I could always tell by the sound of his voice that he was hiding something."

Knuckles decided to tell everyone what Sonic said about his nightmares. He figured that it's now or never and they need to understand what's happening. Surprisingly, Sonic agreed that now's the time.

Meanwhile, inside the room, Amy continued screaming and wiggling slightly despite her restraints. (At first, the doctors didn't bother restraining her legs since she was paralyzed below the waist, but Renoltis ordered it to be done just to be safe). Renoltis told the nurses to stand by for any assistance. He told the other doctor to find a sedative to help calm Amy down and hopefully remove some of the pain. Renoltis walked up to Amy to talk to her and possibly take her mind off the pain. He noticed that she wasn't screaming much, but she was breathing in and out very loudly. (She's acting almost like giving birth!) 

"Amy?" Renoltis spoke as calmly as possible, "Amy, you can make it through this, okay? You're a very strong girl and there's no way that you can survive this long if you weren't, all right? I'm about to give you some medicine that should really help."

"Dr. Renoltis!" The other doctor spoke quickly, "which sedative should I use? I mean she's not exactly human."

Dr. Renoltis quickly replied, "we can't risk using normal sedatives. Just get the universal sedative for now."

Renoltis administered the sedative, though it was tough because every muscle in her body (at least above her waist) was completely stiff and he had to be careful since he was only using a normal needle.

"Stupid thin and fragile needles," Renoltis muttered to himself while injecting the sedative, "luckily the government is giving us newer and better kinds."

The sedative almost immediately had an effect. Amy's pain disappeared and she became very relaxed. She became so exhausted from the ordeal that she quickly fell asleep. The doctor and the two nurses removed all of Amy's restraints including the rubber mouthpiece. Renoltis, the other doctor, and one nurse left the room while the other nurse stayed behind to watch over Amy in case anything else unusual happens.

Out in the hallway, Knuckles had finished telling everyone about what Sonic said about his nightmares. Sonic also told them as well to confirm what Knuckles said. Not too surprisingly, they were all shocked and dumbfounded. They knew he was having nightmares, but they never knew that they could be like that. Just then, Dr. Renoltis walked pass them and Sonic stopped him to get some answers. 

"Hey doc," Sonic sounded quite concerned, "what just happened in there? That completely freaked me out! She looked calm one moment and just a second later she's an emotional mess. Did she have some kind of a breakdown?"

Renoltis simply replied, "no, it's not emotional, it's actually more physical. Basically she's in severe chronic pain. Ever since she was first admitted to this hospital, she's been receiving constant dosages of painkillers."

"Wait a second," Tails interrupted, "it's been a year and a half since she first came to this hospital. How could she still be in pain after all this time? I mean she should have been mostly healed by now, right?"

Renoltis replied, "you're forgetting that her entire body is just completely out of whack. For some reason she's experiencing constant pain. Since we know very little about your physiology, we can only make crude assumptions. If you recall, Sonic's own blood was used to replace Amy's severe blood loss. We couldn't risk using human blood because we had no idea what effect that could have on her. It could probably kill her instantly!"

Rogue decided to speak up, "what about all the medication that she's taking? Didn't you do some research to figure out which one to use?"

"We did some research," Renoltis answered, "but that could take years and Amy's body can't wait that long. Therefore, in the meantime we're using some special universal type medication. This medication is designed to work for almost any living thing. However, they may not always be very effective, so using them is still somewhat risky."

"So what just happened right now?" Sonic still seemed quite confused.

Renoltis replied, "like I said, the medicine that Amy's using are universal type. Surprisingly, they have been very effective since she first came here. Even the universal painkillers have been effective, . . . that is until now."

"What about now?" Tails felt a bit worried for asking that.

Renoltis continued, "Amy's starting to become immune to the painkillers. In other words, the painkillers are having less and less effect."

"Can't you just give her more of the stuff," Shadow simply stated.

"We can't," Renoltis replied, "she's suppose to receive a dose every twelve hours. But it's been only four hours since her last dosage. Plus she's receiving maximum sized dosages and if we give her any now she'll overdose and die or lapse into another coma. Even the sedative that was just used is universal and there's no telling how effective the sedative will be if used repeatedly."

Renoltis and a crew of several pharmacists worked for several days to figure out which painkillers are best to replace Amy's now defective painkillers. During that time, Amy was kept sedated in order to avoid any chronic pain. Renoltis also talked to Carbana to get any opinions. Despite being in a hospital bed, Carbana insisted on studying Amy's charts and body scans. He had a very strong hunch that needed to be resolved.

While Renoltis was taking a short break in his office, Rogue knocked on his door. After being let in, she had a curious yet important question to ask him.

"Why is Dr. Carbana so interested in Amy? He always seems overly concerned with her. Don't take this the wrong way, but most doctors I know act in a pretty cold manner towards their patients. They don't seem to show any significant feelings. Once in a while I sense a bit of sympathy, but Carbana seems overly sympathetic, especially for a doctor."

"That's all right," Renoltis replied, "we get that impression sometimes. But I do admit that Carbana does seem more concerned with Amy than any of his other patients." He paused for a minute, "what I'm about to tell you is very personal. You see, when Dr. Carbana looks at Amy, he's not just seeing Amy but he also sees Emily."

"Who's Emily?" Rogue seemed even more curious.

Renoltis replied, "Emily is his wife. She died six years ago."

Rogue was slightly surprised, "I'm sorry to hear that. But what's does she have to do with Amy?"

"Unfortunately, I don't know all of the details," Renoltis said regretfully, "you'll have to talk to Carbana for that."

Just then there was another knock on the door. There was a doctor's assistant, "Dr. Renoltis? Dr. Carbana wants to see you, it's urgent."

"He's not supposed to be making requests in his condition," Renoltis was a bit frustrated because of that, but agreed to find out what's up. When he arrived at Carbana's bedside, he saw him holding up some x-rays and body scans in the light since there were no adequate displays in his room.

"You know, you're not supposed to be doing that. You still have few days to go and then you can start staring at those things."

"Never mind that," Carbana said insistently, "take a look at these. I have a very bad feeling about this and I want you and the other doctors to try and confirm this."

The next day, after more body scans and tests, Dr. Carbana's hunch was correct, to everyone's dismay. 

"How can this be?" Renoltis was totally shocked, "she's being constantly monitored. How could have this happened?" 

Renoltis now has no choice but to tell Sonic and the others that Amy was now beginning to show signs of heart and kidney failure!

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Just a little spoiler: There's still a couple more things that will happen to Amy in this fic.


	13. An Unlikely Doner

Author's Note: Wow! I can't believe that it's been more than two long months since my last update! Well, since I'm finally done with school for now, updating shouldn't be too much of a problem. (Plus I think I'm getting a bit lazy. I'd better break this habit, and fast!)

Chapter 13: An Unlikely Donor

"Th-this just makes no sense!" Dr. Renoltis read over the test results over and over again. Some excess fluid was building up over various parts of her body, which is one of the symptoms of heart failure. Luckily there was no fluid build-up in her only one lung, but her arms, legs, and neck were starting to show signs of swelling. Dr. Renoltis finally took his eyes off the clipboard went to get Sonic and the gang.

Meanwhile, Knuckles, Tails, and Rouge had just been through another checkup. Knuckles arm was still in a sling and his skull injuries were finally gone. Tails seemed to cope very well with having a prosthetic ear and was very amazed at how real it looked. Most of the time, he doesn't realize that he has an artificial ear (unless he touches it and notices that there's no feeling). Rouge's wing had completely healed and was useable once again. She decided to go flying around later on to exercise them. Sonic sat on a bench while waiting for his friend to finish their checkup. When they saw Sonic, they noticed that he was deep in thought. He wasn't exactly worried because he believed that Amy was in good hands, although he felt very concerned for her after seeing what happened yesterday. Images of her screaming, squirming, and crying out in agony were constantly flashing through his mind like a slide show and he was having some difficulty in resisting anxiety.

"Hey Sonic," Tails called out to him, "lets go visit Amy. Visiting hours started almost three hours ago."

Sonic nodded and left with them to Amy's room. When they arrived, they noticed that Shadow was already in the room watching over her. She was still asleep and sedated since the painkillers no longer have an effect. Luckily, the sedatives have painkiller qualities, but the doctors were afraid that she would eventually become immune unless a new sedative is created. 

"I decided to talk to her a little," Shadow stated, "although I'm not really sure if she could hear me or not. With Maria gone, I figured I should at least talk to someone. Besides, Amy looks so peaceful right now especially compared to yesterday, I just have to say something."

Sonic and the others understood and they all watched Amy contently. She was still wearing an IV tube since the doctors say she needs it for her medications until her body and health becomes stable, if ever. They all were amazed at how calm and peaceful she was. She was breathing normally and wasn't even snoring. A stark contrast from her appearance yesterday and they all remembered every detail. Amy was definitely full of pain and agony, but they could also tell that she was very frightened. These kinds of feelings were unlike anything that she's ever experienced before and it took her completely by surprise. 

"Well, at least she's not experiencing that again," Sonic simply stated.

Dr. Renoltis then shows up in the room, "ah, here you all are. Um, how is everyone." Sonic and the gang could tell that his voice was slightly uneasy.

"Hey doc," Sonic asked, "Amy looks a little different from yesterday. She kind of looks like she's putting on some weight." Sonic and the others noticed that Amy looked slightly puffed up. 

Knuckles and Rouge seemed a bit concerned as well. "Yeah," Knuckles spoke up, "I notice that she seems kind of swollen. Her arms and legs weren't that big yesterday."

Tails noticed the swelling on her neck, "doctor, does she have the mumps or something. Is she having some kind of allergic reaction?"

"Um, no. I'm afraid not," the doctor stated as calmly as possible. 

Sonic and the others didn't like the sound of his voice and they knew that something was happening. 

"Doctor," Rouge spoke up, "do you know what's wrong with Amy? Do you know why she looks a bit swollen?"

"Yes, I know exactly why," the doctor stated almost flatly, "this is pretty serious, do you think that he should listening to this?" The doctor said while pointing at Tails.

"Hey! Amy's like a big sister to me," Tails complained "if I leave, then I feel like I'm abandoning her."

The doctor complied, "all right. Just don't complain to me if you become depressed." The other reluctantly agreed for once.

"Okay," the doctor tried to stay as calm as possible, "I find it kind of hard to break this to all of you, but . . .," he looked over the notes on the clipboard to reassure himself on what he'll say, "Amy is . . . . she's beginning to show signs of . . . of heart and kidney failure."

Obviously, everyone was just totally shocked and dumbfounded instantly by what the doctor said. Sonic didn't seem to react immediately, the shock didn't really strike him just yet. 

The doctor continued, "it seems that her heat and kidneys were damaged in the car accident many months ago. The damages have been hiding from us the whole time. Now do you see why we need more information on her physiology?"

Rouge had her hands over her mouth and made a loud gasp. Tails was equally stunned and was shaking his head in disbelief, trying his best to deny everything that he just heard and tears started to form in his eyes. Knuckles mouth hung halfway open and then started feeling a bit sick in the stomach.

Sonic just stared at Dr. Renoltis and blinked a few times. Surprisingly, at first he didn't seem affected by what he just heard. He watched everyone else's reactions and he hanged his head down while shutting his eyes very tightly. A few seconds later, he clenched his fists so hard that his own knuckles started cracking. Then he began to see red and just completely lost it. 

"AAAAAAAGH!!!" Sonic screamed while running right at the doctor. (Knowing how fast Sonic is, he covered the short distance in less time than you could blink). He jumped up and grabbed the doctor's collar with both hands and his feet were on doctor's midsection. Since Dr. Renoltis is almost a good three feet taller, Sonic almost looked like a rock climber hanging onto a cliff! The doctor almost lost his balance with the sudden extra weight hanging on him and Sonic got into the doctor's face.

"What kind of a hospital are you running here!?" Sonic was totally livid, "you're supposed to be helping Amy! Why is all this happening to her!? Hasn't she been through enough already!?" 

Despite how furious he was, a tear started to form in his eye. His friends were very surprised by his sudden actions and the doctor was very shocked. Shadow rushed up to them and pried Sonic off of the doctor after a bit of struggling. 

"Hey, we're doing everything possible to keep her health stable," Dr. Renoltis spoke as calmly as possible, "you have no idea how hard it is just to keep her alive. Keeping her body and health stable is about as hard as balancing a pencil vertically on its tip. If her health were to change even the slightest amount in any direction, any number of negative affects can occur. She could have a stroke, go into shock, have some kind of allergic reaction, fall into another coma, . . . . or even die suddenly."

Sonic calmed down a little, but he was still extremely upset.

The doctor continued, "believe me, I'm just as surprised as all of you guys. Right now, several very important objectives need to be done to help Amy right now."

"So, you've got a plan to save her now, huh?" Tails asked very anxiously.

The doctor continued, "simply put, she needs a heart and kidney transplant, but using human organs is just far too risky. We're still in the middle of studying her physiology and we're also trying to crack her genetic code. This will really help us in deciding what to do or what medication to use without placing further risk on her health." Dr. Renoltis was trying his best to turn the situation around and bring some hope into this dismal moment.

Sonic calmed down a bit more, but was still very tense, "how . . . how long does she have if this isn't fixed?" Sonic almost felt like kicking himself for asking that kind of question. 

The doctor rubbed his chin a bit, trying to remember the numbers, "well, judging by her rate of fluid build-up in her body, I'd say somewhere between two to four months. I'm hoping of course that it's closer to four months, . . . maybe more than that hopefully. Of course since our study of her physiology isn't quite complete, this number could vary a bit."

Sonic just blinked a few times in surprise and made a load groan. He sat down on the nearest bench and buried his face in his hands. The others just stared at each other with very worried faces.

The doctor continued, "you see when a person has heart failure, one symptom is excess fluid build-up throughout their body and Amy's case isn't any different. This mostly occurs in the arms, legs, throat, and abdomen, which is why she's beginning to look swollen. The kidneys actually help remove some of the excess fluid, thereby slowing down the rate of fluid build-up."

Everyone except Sonic listened carefully. Anxiety was filling up in the air.

"But, like I said earlier, her kidneys are failing as well. Therefore, the fluid will start building up in her body much faster. If this isn't stopped, she could develop infections all over her body and that would be VERY bad. I'm sorry to tell you all about this, but I figured that you should know so you can understand how serious this is."

Despite not paying any attention just now, Sonic did overhear a few words and took his face out of his hands. "Doc, didn't you just say that an organ transplant could help her?"

"Oh, absolutely," the doctor replied, "of course donating a heart isn't very smart. One can't really live without one, unless they don't mind using an artificial heart. Although donating a kidney can really help. It's best if the donator is at least the same species to reduce any possible unnecessary risks."

Sonic gave a deep sigh while clenching his fists and gritting his teeth. He relaxed a little and made a huge decision. "All right doc, I'll -"

"I'll do it," Shadow interrupted. 

Everyone immediately turned their heads at just stared at Shadow, completely dumbfounded. Sonic even did a double take from what he just heard! They all just couldn't believe Shadow would actually volunteer for something like this!

"Uh, Shadow?" Sonic asked, still not recovered from the shock, "are you feeling all right? Did you . . . did you just say you'll do it? You'll actually donate a kidney to Amy!? But . . . why?"

"Hey, what are complaining about?" Shadow seemed a bit insulted, "I heard that you donated half of your blood to Amy when she was first admitted to this hospital. Besides, I want to help for once. I haven't done anything nice in a while, so I figured that maybe I could try doing this. I wasn't able to save Maria all those years ago, but maybe there's a chance I can save Amy."

Sonic was still in shock and speechless, "but . . . but . . ."

Shadow continued, "I have no idea what relations you have with Amy. Whether you like her or hate her, I can't just stand here and watch her suffer like this. Just think of this as a huge favor from me."

Sonic was still at a loss of words. He looked over at Amy and noticed how peaceful and relaxed she looked. But he knew that eventually, that peaceful look on her face will be filled with terror and agony if nothing is done to help her. He actually wanted to help her, seeing Amy like this has taken a huge toll on him. He believes that Amy has suffered enough. A long time ago, he wanted to see her suffer for being such an annoyance in his life, but this is just way too much. This is just overkill plain and simple.

Sonic swallowed hard and very reluctantly agreed, "all right. Just make sure that her body doesn't reject it." He gave a quick nod to Shadow and Dr. Renoltis.

"Okay then," the doctor clapped his hands and rubbed them together, "it's settled then. Shadow, first your blood will have to be tested to see if it's compatible with Amy's, that way there's less chance of her body rejecting the transplant. We've already done this with Sonic's blood, so it's not exactly a new thing anymore. Um Sonic, Shadow, you do realize that if Amy's blood isn't compatible, we'll have no choice but to turn to Sonic for the kidney transplant?" Both Sonic and Shadow nodded in agreement.

"There is one problem though, "Dr. Renoltis continued, "I'm going to have to find an alternative solution for a heart transplant. Like I said earlier, using a human heart is far too risky. I believe I have a plan, but I'll need some help from certain resources." 

About two hours later, the results for Shadow's blood test were complete. It confirmed that Shadow's blood is indeed compatible with Amy's.

"Wow," Doctor Renoltis said to himself, "since all three of those hedgehogs have compatible blood, I wonder if they have blood types at all?"

During that time, Sonic stayed in the room with Amy and started talking to her for once. He finally had a chance to apologize to her after all that's happened. Of course since she's asleep, she couldn't respond to what he said, but Sonic figured that it's a start.

Shadow and Tails talked with Dr. Renoltis and his assistants so they can find out the details about the transplant. Tails wanted to know since he was fascinated by their job. Shadow wanted to know the details since they will be the ones operating on him later on. 

Knuckles decided to go for a walk so he can clear his mind. He planned on returning to visit Amy one more time before the operation. Rouge also wanted to do something to take her mind from what she heard, so she decided pay Dr. Carbana a visit. She wanted to know some information on Emily and why he has more feelings for Amy than any of his other patients. Rouge arrived at Dr. Carbana's room, but there was a nurse standing by the entrance. 

"I'm sorry, but you can't go in right now," the nurse spoke persuasively, "he's resting right now and shouldn't be disturbed."

"It's all right nurse," Dr. Carbana spoke from his hospital bed, "I'm not really tired right now and wouldn't mind a little company." The nurse reluctantly moved allowed Rouge through. 

"Hello Rouge," the doctor seemed quite cheerful, "I've got some great news. Well, it's not really that big of a deal I think, but maybe you can tell the other."

"Oh? What is it?" Rouge replied, a bit curious.

"I've completed my recovery," the doctor replied happily, "I can finally go back to work tomorrow! Now I can give Dr. Renoltis a break and I can now take care Amy and my other patients." 

"Well that's great. Uh, doctor? I wanted to ask you something, but it's a bit personal."

The doctor didn't seem to mind, "well then, we'll just have to see just how personel it is. Okay, shoot."

Rouge thought about what exactly to say, "call it a hunch, but I've noticed that you seem to have some very strong sympathetic feeling towards Amy. You haven't known her as long as me and others have, but you seem very close to her for some reason."

The doctor hesitated for a moment, "I always feel some sympathy for all of my patients. As long as it doesn't interfere with my job and that has happened a few times in my career. By the way, did Dr. Renoltis tell you and the others about Amy's new problem?"

Rouge nodded, "yes, he told us everything. Sonic was so torn by what he heard that he actually lunged at Dr. Renoltis. Shadow managed to pull him away before the situation got any uglier."

Dr. Carbana hung his head a bit and sighed regretfully. "It really sucks don't it. I can't believe that all of this is actually happening to her. This is supposed to be the most technologically advanced hospital in the entire country. Yet despite this, Amy's condition keeps fluctuating. Sometimes it even gets out of hand, and now this happens." (Actually the hospital has a counterpart at the other side of the country that uses similar technology).

Rouge continued her questions, "if you don't mind me asking, can you tell me about your wife Emily?"

The doctor was very shocked that she asked this, "who-who told you about Emily?" He sounded slightly offended.

Rouge was a bit surprised at his reaction, "Dr. Renoltis told us about her because we were all concerned about the way you feel towards Amy."

The doctor relaxed a little, "did he tell you everything?"

"No," Rouge replied "but he said that to get more detailed information, I'd have to talk to you."

Dr. Carbana gave a deep sigh, "I figured that this would happen eventually. I guess it's too late to deny it now. All right, I'll tell you everything. Besides, it's been a while since I talked to anyone besides nurses and other doctors."

Rouge walked over to the door of the room and shut it to get some privacy. (That nurse is still out in the hallway.) She then pulled a chair next to his bed and sat down to listen.

Dr. Carbana continued, "as you already know, Emily is my deceased wife. She died six years ago."

"That's exactly what Dr. Renoltis said to me," Rouge reiterated, "I'm very sorry to hear that, but what does she have to do with Amy? Why are you so overly sympathetic towards Amy?" 

Dr. Carbana replied in a rather tense manner, "do you know how she died? I'll tell you, but it's going to sound very familiar."

Rouge was slightly surprised, "huh? What's that supposed to mean?"

The doctor continued, "she died in a car accident. She was in her car in a parking lot when a thirty-five ton eighteen-wheeler smashed into the back of her car. I think the driver lost control of the truck or something. Her car was crushed between the eighteen-wheeler and the brick wall in front of the car. The car was so badly crushed that it looked like those beer cans that those tough guys smash against their foreheads. It took several hours of cutting open the car to finally get her out and she was rushed to this very hospital since it was the closest. By the time she arrived, she had lost almost fifty percent of her blood! That alone should have put her in shock, yet she miraculously stayed conscious. I was called into the emergency trauma ward where she was kept at the moment. I wasn't told that it was my wife until just before I entered the room. Obviously I was so horrified that I actually hesitated for a minute, but my wife needed me so I rushed in."

Rouge's mouth hung open in surprise. She knew exactly what the doctor was getting at with this.

Dr. Carbana continued, "some quick body assessments and scans were performed to determine the extent of her injuries while some blood was taken at the blood bank to replace the blood she lost. It was found that both legs were broken, both arms were broken, her spine was snapped in half, her rib cage was shattered, both lungs were damaged and even her heart took some damage, there were some skull fractures and even some brain swelling."

Rouge was taken completely off guard that anyone could have those injuries. She her hand cupped over her mouth and tried to fight back tears because those injuries sounded familiar indeed. "Those . . . those injuries that you wife had, they sound almost identical to Amy's!"

The doctor slowly nodded, a tear forming in his eyes for recalling such a painful moment in his life, "yes, except there's one big difference between Amy and my wife."

Rouge blurted out, "uhh, she a human and Amy's a hedgehog?" (Duh!)

Dr. Carbana ignored the remark, "the difference is that Amy's alive and Emily isn't. She died right in my arms less than fifteen minutes after she was admitted in this hospital. I was so depressed that I took a leave from my work to go see some psychiatrists to help keep me from having a nervous breakdown. Heck, as you already know, Amy even had that eighteen inch piece of metal impaled through her head and she still lived! Now, six years later, every time I see Amy, it's like I'm seeing my wife again. It's like having a second chance to save my wife. Although I couldn't save Emily, I can make up for it by helping Amy."

Rouge got up from her chair, "I . . . I had no idea. I understand now. I'm sorry that I had to get that kind of information from you, I can barely how painful it must have been."

The doctor wiped the tears from his face, "no, it's all right. Sometimes it's best to talk things out of your mind. Keeping certain painful memories locked in you without venting some of it out can make you go crazy eventually."

Rouge nodded and was about to walk out of the room, "doctor, do you want me to keep this as a secret?"

Dr. Carbana shook his head, "no, actually I think it's best that the others know as well. I'm sure that they have similar questions about my feeling for Amy. I don't want to keep them in the dark."

Rouge nodded in agreement and left the room. Dr. Carbana gave a huge sigh of relief, he felt much better after telling Rouge about his wife.

About an hour later, the transplant operation began. Shadow was rather nervous for being operated on, but he knew that it would help Amy so he forcefully pushed his nervousness aside. Surprisingly, the operation only took two hours and there were no signs of Amy's body rejecting the transplant. Everyone including all the doctors were very joyful that the operation was a success. Shadow felt very proud of himself that he was able to help in a way that he never thought possible.

Dr. Renoltis walked up to Sonic and company, "all right! It worked!" He stated ecstatically, but he quickly started to feel a bit nervous and unsure about the next part of his plan to help Amy. "You do realize that she still needs a new heart? And since we can't risk using a human heart, there's not very many options remaining. And I don't want any of you to volunteer donating a heart! That would obviously be suicide on your part."

Sonic was starting to feel very concerned about what the doctor was getting at. "So, uh . . . so what do plan on doing then?"

The doctor rubbed the back of his head nervously, "well, there are at least two options, and both of them have their own problems. One simple solution would be to implant an artificial heart, although we've never done it to a non-human before so this could pose a slight risk. The other option is probably much more problematic."

"What do you plan on doing then?" Rouge asked, slightly curious, "what's the other option?"

The doctor replied, "you have to realize that a transplant is usually better in the long run than an artificial implant. Implants wear out after a while, but transplants can last a lifetime, assuming that theirs no complications."

"So what are you getting at?" Knuckles asked, sounding a bit impatient.

The doctor answered a bit nervously, "um, well, to make this as simple as possible, we'll have to literally grow a new heart for Amy."

"HUH!?" Everyone was taken totally by surprise from this.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sonic asked with some confusion in his voice.

The doctor continued, "I mean that Amy will need an exact replica of her heart. In other words, the hospital will have to literally clone a new heart for Amy. The only problem with this is not the technology, but the fact that this procedure is considered to be very unethical. This cloning procedure has only been done twice in this hospital and they were both a success, but we were in deep trouble by the government. If this is ever done again, the government will shut down this hospital and we'll lose a lot of jobs. Not to mention that all of our patients will have to be relocated to other hospitals and considering the number of patients we have, that's just not an option." (There are over 9,000 patients currently in that hospital. I'll explain more about the hospital itself in the next chapter).

Sonic let out a frustrated groan, "so now what? Are you going to fix Amy's heart or what?"

"I've already spoken to several members of the government and to the hospital board," the doctor replied, "they're all talking over about what to do. I should get their reply soon, I just hope for Amy's sake that it's VERY soon."

The next day, Dr. Carbana finally returned to his job as the chief trauma surgeon and donned his doctor's uniform. Dr. Renoltis was relieved from working on Amy and returned to working on his other patients. Dr. Carbana continued Dr. Renoltis' plan to get Amy a new heart. The timing for his return couldn't be any better because when Renoltis "passed the torch" to Carbana, Renoltis told him to double check some readings on Amy's condition.

"Oh man, this is bad!" Dr. Carbana studied Amy's charts and body scans. It turned out that the rate of fluid build-up in her body is accelerating! "We'll have to remove her heart right away!"

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So, what do you think? Do you think that cloning a heart could save her? Is there another way?

Like I said in the last chapter, there's still two more things that will happen to Amy. The next chapter (chapter 14) will involve the first one and chapter 15 will involve the second. The second one will by far be the worst thing that will happen to her. But luckily, after that the story will finally make a turn for the better.


	14. Look Sonic, One Handed!

Author's Note: You can sort of think of this chapter as a late Christmas present. Though if you ask me, I don't think it's appropriate to call this a Christmas present anyway. I didn't want to ruin the Christmas mood my uploading this chapter, but I also didn't want to make you all wait too long like most of my other chapters. Also, I'm so anxious to write chapter 15 that I just had to finished this as quickly as possible.

Chapter 14: Look Sonic, One Handed!

Dr. Carbana reviewed over the results from the tests. The rate of fluid build-up in Amy's body has almost doubled! But since she now has a new kidney, this should slow it down a bit and hopefully buy her some time. The next day, Dr. Carbana was in his office while talking to Dr. Yulevski, a well-known bio-geneticist. He agreed to clone a new heart for Amy.

"Her heart needs to be removed ASAP," Dr. Carbana was rather tense at the moment, "if we remove that, then it will cut off the fluid build-up. Of course she'll obviously need a new heart."

"Agreed, I'll get to it right away," they shook hands and Dr. Yulevski got up to leave, "but you do realize that cloning any body part will take a while."

"Yeah, I know," Dr. Carbana was all too familiar with cloned body parts. He nearly lost his job because of it and he knew that cloning could take months! "But, can you tell me exactly how long it will take? I need to make some plans based on that."

Dr. Yulevski replied almost without hesitation, "based on the size and shape of her heart, the process should take four to five months." He then left to get started on the procedure. 

"Oh great, just great," he said to himself sarcastically. He then reread over the test results and came up with an estimated conclusion, "even with a new kidney, Amy only has less than a months to live if her heart isn't removed!" 

He paced around in his office for a while and came up with a plan, though it was a bit risky. He then spoke to his assistants and a few other doctors including Dr. Renoltis. Most of the doctors and assistants agreed with his plan, but Dr. Renoltis was a bit uncomfortable. 

"Wait a minute," Dr. Renoltis protested, "you plan on removing her heart and replacing it with an artificial one?"

Dr. Carbana nodded, "of course, I can't just leave Amy's heart alone. I can't wait for her cloned heart to arrive, she'll be dead long before then."

Dr. Renoltis still continued to disagree, "but . . . but we don't know what design to use. Obviously we can't use an artificial heart that's designed for humans."

"I know that!" Dr. Carbana was starting to get irritated, "but I see no other option." He calmed down slightly, "we're going to do a 3-D CAT scan on her heart. We'll also do the same for Sonic and Shadow since they're also hedgehogs. Hopefully with the data we collect will be enough to create an artificial heart that compatible enough." 

Dr. Renoltis finally agreed reluctantly, "okay, I just hope that it will be good enough. Well, good luck then." Dr. Carbana gave a simple nod and all of the doctors and assistants continued with their current tasks. Some went to the bioengineering lab to assist Dr. Yulevski with the cloning process.

Dr. Carbana visited some doctors that were busy studying Amy's physiology and compiling the data. "So how's it going? Are you done?"

One of the assistants replied, "not quite yet, we're almost done. I'd say about one or two more weeks and it should be complete."

"All right, excellent," Dr. Carbana was actually quite disappointed, but he didn't want to show it and end up discouraging the doctors. He left the room and gave a frustrated groan, "this just isn't my day. I don't want do prolong Amy's heart trouble, this could cause some unforeseen complications."

He anxiously wanted to start on creating Amy's artificial heart, but he reluctantly decided to wait until her physiological data is complete. He then went to check on his other patients.

Meanwhile, Dr. Renoltis was walking down a hallway on the first floor. He planned to check on one more of his patients, then take a short break. "I can't believe Dr. Carbana plans on going along with this. But I guess I have no choice but to agree with him. I can't really think of another option myself."

Rouge was in the lobby at the moment since visiting hours was still a few minutes away. She still couldn't get her mind off of Amy's current condition, seeing her all swollen. She also couldn't stop thinking Dr. Carbana's story yesterday and how uncannily similar Emily's injuries were to Amy's. Just as the doctor requested, she told his story to Sonic and the others and needless to say, they would never view the doctor the same way again. Rouge wanted to do something to get her mind off of what's happening. She spotted Dr. Renoltis as he passed by and he seemed to be in a hurry since he didn't even notice her. She decided to have a talk with him since she had a very curious question to ask. She decided to follow him so that she wouldn't lose him. He walked into a patient's room, but Rouge didn't want to disturb his work, so she waited by the door. 

A few minutes later, Dr. Renoltis exited the room and was startled to see Rouge waiting for him. "Hey, what are you doing here? Visiting hours haven't started yet."

"Well sorry," Rouge felt slightly offended, "I just wanted to talk to you that's all. Of course that's assuming that you're not busy. If you are I can just come back later."

"No, never mind," Dr. Renoltis replied indifferently, "I just so happened to be on my break right now. Anyways, where's Sonic and the others. Usually they're in the lobby waiting for visiting hours to start. Sonic has probably overslept, he should be here soon. Knuckles should be here any minute, he was right behind me earlier, but I guess he wanted to buy something for Amy. I think I should have done the same. Tails decided to visit the industry that builds the medical technology for this hospital."

"Oh, is that so," the doctor was surprised to hear this, "I wonder why he would do that."

Rouge replied, "Tails said that he felt very useless by just standing around and watching Amy on her hospital bed. So he decided to use his mechanical and technological know-how to assist the industry in any way possible. He figured that he might be able to help Amy in this manner. Also, Shadow decided to go with him, sort of as a bodyguard I guess. Though I think Tails can take care of himself, but Shadow insisted."

"Ah, that great," the doctor replied with some surprise, "it's good to see them volunteer in any way to help out. Anyway, you said that you wanted to talk to me about something?" They walked back down the hall towards his office.

"Oh yeah," Rouge replied, "it's about this hospital, I'd like to know more about it."

The doctor looked a bit puzzled, "that's a strange request. Normally I shouldn't tell anyone about the hospital, but I guess I can tell you the basics." They arrived at an elevator and the doctor pushed the third floor button while Rouge listened contently.

The doctor continued, "if I remember correctly, you have all been staying at an apartment a few blocks from this building, correct?" Rouge gave a simple nod. "In that case, would you believe that you've been living in the hospital premises the whole time? That apartment is actually part of this hospital!" 

"Huh, what!?" Rouge was quite surprised to hear this.

"I'm serious," the doctor continued, "also, this building isn't even the entire hospital. This is just the trauma center and it's only a small piece of the entire medical center. Actually, I prefer thinking of this place as more like a medical compound." They arrived at the floor and they proceeded towards his office.

Rouge was still quite curious, "just how big is this hospital?"

"This medical compound covers about 550 acres," the doctor replied, "currently there's over 9,000 patients, but that's nothing. It's capable of holding 40,000 to 50,000 patients, though we try not to get near that number, as taking care of them becomes a huge hassle. As you may remember, there's another hospital at the other side of the country that uses the same technology that we do, but it's nowhere near as big. It only holds about 2,000 patients at the most, but we still work together."

"So how many buildings does this place have, . . . and how do you handle so many patients?" Rouge was still quite curious. At least she's taking her mind off of Amy's problems for the moment. They finally arrived at his office. The doctor opened the door and they both entered.

"Let's see," the doctor thought for a moment, "that's sort of depends. If you're referring to just the hospital buildings themselves, then there are 38. If the peripheral building are included, such as the hospital-owned apartments and parking structures, then it totals to 59. We also have a pretty substantial staff in this place. There are currently about 18,000 doctors, nurses, and assistants, though they're not always here at once."

Rouge thought of another question, "so how much did this place cost?"

"Oh, that," the doctor rubbed his chin, "this medical compound was actually relatively cheap. I believe it was around 600 million dollars."

Rouge interrupted, "you call that cheap!"

"Actually, yes," the doctor replied, "if this place was built from the ground up, it would've cost between 10 to 12 billion dollars! But you see this place wasn't originally a hospital, it used to be some kind of military base or installation. It was abandoned more than thirty years ago and was converted to a medical compound."

"Wow! That's impressive," Rouge replied in an amazed tone, "I thought this was the only building in this place. I mean when I was flying around, I did notice many building nearby, but I never expected them all to be part of the same structure!" Rouge was done asking questions, "I'd better get going now. Visiting hours are about to start."

Before she left, the doctor stopped her for a moment, "wait, there's one more thing about this hospital."

Rouge stopped at the door and turned around, "oh, what is it?"

The doctor continued, "you see, this hospital and our counterpart are the government's pride and joy. Because of this, this hospital is basically used as a sort of guinea pig for medical technology."

Rouge was puzzled by that, "what's that supposed to mean?"

The doctor replied, "half the equipment that's used here doesn't even exist in other hospitals. We're basically five to ten years ahead of other hospital in terms of technology. This place is used to test these new equipment before it's distributed to other hospitals. The good thing is that all of this equipment is free to the hospital. Unfortunately, in exchange for that, we have to kiss the government's butt and follow their rules. This includes the time that we tried to clone some body part several years ago and we were in big trouble. The government forbids cloning since it was considered very unethical." 

"I see," Rouge replied, finding it sort of hard to comprehend why this is so. 

She waved goodbye to Dr. Renoltis and made her way back to the lobby. When she arrived there, she saw Sonic and Knuckles just sitting down on the lobby benches while chilling out. She waved hello and when she got to them visiting hours started and they made their way to Amy's room. They were starting to get very worried for Amy because she's starting to swell up worse than a bee sting victim. They also noticed that her belly was starting to swell.

"Man, I hope they hurry up," Sonic said to himself, "this is really starting to freak me out."

Later that day, after visiting hours were over, Dr. Yulevski and his team of doctors entered Amy's room and used a special experimental long flexible needle and pierced it through her chest. Using a simple body scanner to look inside her body, they carefully maneuvered the needle between her ribs and behind her breastbone. After only half an hour, they successfully extracted some heart cells without any problems. They didn't want to use surgery and cut her chest open just to get some heart cells since this was considered faster and simpler. Although this is a much more delicate procedure, the doctors were well trained on using the experimental equipment. 

"Okay, we got," Dr. Yulevski said, feeling relieved, "let's start cloning her heart right away, every second counts."

Over the next ten days, Amy's anatomical data was just about complete and the heart cloning procedure was well underway. Sonic, Knuckles, and Rouge were starting to feel sick to their stomachs. Watching Amy was like watching a time bomb that could explode at any time. Half the time, Sonic couldn't even bear to look. Her arms, legs, and neck have swollen to almost four times their normal size and stretch mark were becoming visible. Her belly had swollen so much that she almost look pregnant, except that's no baby she's holding, it's all excess fluid. Dr. Carbana walked in the room to check up on Amy. 

Sonic quickly went up to the doctor, "hey doc, what's taking so long? Amy's starting to look like a balloon! Isn't that new kidney even working at all?"

"Hey, try not to worry so much right now," the doctor spoke reassuringly, "if she didn't have a new kidney she would be almost twice as swollen right now and probably dead by now. Besides, as soon as her heart is removed and replaced with an artificial one, her new kidney will naturally remove most of the excess fluid. We'll then remove the rest after that."

"How much longer will that take?" Sonic was starting to get very irritated and frustrated.

"That depend on how much longer before the other doctors are done studying her anatomy," the doctor replied, trying to calm him down, " as soon as it's complete, we'll get started on her artificial heart right away. It shouldn't be much longer, in fact I-"

One of the doctor's assistants entered the room, "Dr. Carbana, you're needed at the study lab. Something about Amy's anatomy and physiology."

"Is that so," Dr. Carbana spoke with some anticipation in his voice, "I'll be there right away." The doctor turned to Sonic, "I'll be right back. I should have some answers by then." He quickly made his way towards the study lab.

Sonic, Knuckles, and Rouge just stared at the door where the doctor exited. They looked back and Amy and hoped that her ordeal will be over right away. So far her body weight had more than doubled due to excess fluid.

"At least Amy is still asleep from the sedatives," Knuckles said, trying to look at the bright side, "I'd hate to imagine what she'd feel like if she saw herself right now." 

The study lab was in an uproar, "all right! We've finally done it!" All of the doctors and assistants were very ecstatic. "Dr. Carbana will freak when he finds out!"

Dr. Carbana arrived at the lab as quick as possible, "what's going on? Have you finally done it?"

"You bet!" One of the assistants replied cheerfully, "we've finally completed studying and compiling Amy's physiological data. Now that we know everything about what makes her tick, this should give us a huge lead in helping her."

All of the doctors and assistants gave each other high fives and pats on the back. "Congratulations," Dr. Carbana spoke cheerfully, "it took the human race hundreds if not thousands of years to learn everything about its own anatomy. We've learned the anatomy of a completely new life form in only two months!" 

They all felt very proud of their hard work and achievements. "Now let's not waste any time," Dr. Carbana spoke with a serious tone, "Amy's cloned heart will not arrive for at least four months. So it's up to us to design an artificial heart that will support her until then. Now let's put our new knowledge to work." 

A few moments later, Sonic, Knuckles, and Rouge were told about the doctors' progress and they were very relieved. Sonic and Shadow agreed to have a chest scan so that the doctors have more data to help design Amy's heart.

The next day, Dr. Carbana and the doctors were almost done designing Amy's artificial heart. Shadow and Tails returned from the hospital technology factory.

Sonic, Knuckles, and Rouge were sitting in a park bench just outside of the hospital since it wasn't visiting hours yet. They spotted Shadow and Tails and they waved at each other.

"So, how did it go?" Sonic asked, "was there any interesting stuff?"

"It was embarrassing at first," Tails replied, "there was a lot of string involved, but Shadow kept them all in check."

"What did you do there?" Knuckles asked since he was kind of bored at the moment.

"I helped them out a little with their experimental equipment," Tails was slightly disappointed, "though if you ask me, I think their technology is a bit . . . well . . . primitive. I mean I was able to improve most of their technology without even breaking a sweat. Obviously they were all amazed and most asked if I could work with them full time. I simply told them that I'll think about it. So how's Amy, anything happen while I was gone?"

"Oh yes, quite a lot happened," Sonic answered, feeling anxious, "the doctors are cloning a brand new heart for Amy. But they said that cloning would take a long time, so in the meantime they decided to design an artificial heart to help keep her alive until then."

"Hey, you know what? That sounds very interesting," Tails was very happy to hear this, "I think I'll go lend them a hand." Tails quickly rushed into the hospital.

"It's nice to know that things are starting to go up for once," Shadow actually had a small smile on his face, which was a very rare sight, "I was starting to think that my kidney donation would be for nothing." 

When Tails arrived at the lobby, Dr. Carbana was just passing by. Tails flagged him down to get his attention. 

"Hey, doctor," Tails finally got his attention, "I heard that you're working on a new heart for Amy. Um, am I bothering you?"

"No you're not," the doctor simply answered, "I just finished my lunch break and I'm about to continue in helping the other doctors design a new artificial heart."

"Ooh, can I please help?" Tail was very anxious to do something that will help Amy.

"This is quite unusual," Dr. Carbana replied, "I found out that you visited the industry that provides experimental equipment for this hospital. I guess we could use some of your, I just hope the other doctors don't get jealous." They left to the study lab together. 

Dr. Carbana and the other doctors were amazed at how quickly they succeeded. They estimated that designing and building a custom built artificial heart such as Amy's should take at least two or three days. Even though Tails knows little about anatomy, with his help the heart was completed in only twelve hours! Surprisingly, there was no hint of jealousy among the doctors. In fact, just like the factory the Tails visited earlier, the doctors asked if he could work for them. Again, Tails politely turned down the offer and said once again that he'll think about it.

Later that night, Dr. Carbana and a team of nearly a dozen doctors and assistants began the surgery to remove Amy's failing heart and replace it with a temporary artificial one. At the same time, other doctors were busy creating new antibiotics and medications, including a long awaited painkiller that's more compatible with Amy. 

Surprisingly, there was no fluid build-up in her chest cavity, so this made the surgery much simpler. It only took about eight hours to remove Amy's heart and attach the artificial one, being careful to connect the proper blood vessels to the right parts of the artificial heart. They also implanted a pacemaker that would help the temporary heart pump properly. To everyone's relief, there were no complications during the procedure. Amy now has a new but temporary heart and just as Dr. Carbana predicted, the fluid build-up completely stopped and her new kidney was slowly removing the excess fluid. He also estimated that based on her physiology, most of the fluid will be gone in about six to eight weeks.

When Sonic and company found out about the surgery, they were completely filled with joy. Now they don't have to worry about Amy looking like a balloon sculpture. Two days later however, everyone hopes came crashing down like a meteor!

Dr. Carbana was checking through Amy body scans, including the chest cavity to make sure that there are no complications from the temporary heart. He then noticed something unusual about her body scans, especially when compared to her older ones. 

"What the-, oh no! I need to confirm this," he showed his finding to some other doctors. They extracted some blood samples from Amy and studied them. "Oh please, oh please, oh please, please let me be wrong this time." 

A few minutes later, the results arrived and he could tell from the doctor's reactions that it wasn't good. Unfortunately, to his dismay, his predictions were right again. Infections were starting to run rampant all over her body. Her own immune system was nowhere near strong enough to fight off the numerous infections. Some of them threatened her brain and her only one good lung. Luckily, Dr. Carbana and the other doctors were prepared for this situation. They injected some antibiotics into her, though it took a while to have any effect, most of the infections were neutralized. But what happened next caught them all completely off guard. 

After doing another quick body scan to check the final results, Dr. Carbana found a small infection in her left hand that didn't want to leave. After a few hours, the infection began to spread fast. 

"What's going on?" Dr. Carbana was very frantic, "why aren't the antibiotics working?"

One of the assistants answered, "I don't understand, we're giving her a maximum dosage. If we increase the dosage any further, she'll overdose!"

One of the other doctors spoke up, "if this infection spreads, we'll be right back where we started!"

Another assistant stated, "if this keeps up, we'll eventually run out of antibiotics and it took a few hours just to make this much!"

Dr. Carbana considered all of his options. Unfortunately, there was only one thing that could be done to help Amy right now. He explained it to the others doctors and off course they were rather surprised that he would make this decision. They decided to go along with it and Dr. Carbana felt like kicking himself a thousand times for making this decision.

When Sonic and the others arrived to visit Amy they saw doctor Carbana standing next to the doorway. His face was slightly pale looking and seemed very nervous and quite sad, "um, . . . I think there's something that you all should know. I can assure that there was no other way to help her."

They can tell that this was a very ominous moment. Before anyone did anything else, Sonic quickly zipped right into the room to find out what the doctor was talking about. Less than two seconds later, they were all startled from what they heard.

"AAAAAAHHHHH!!!! WHAT HAPPENED!!!" Sonic yelled at the top of his lungs. Everyone except Dr. Carbana rushed into the room to see what happened.

"Sonic, what's wrong?" Tails was very startled to hear him yell like this.

Sonic was still yelling, "IT'S HER HAND!!!"

Rouge got a good look at Amy and immediately started to feel light-headed

Knuckles saw it as well, "oh, I just can't believe this!"

Shadow got in last, "what's going on? What about her hand?"

Sonic was totally shocked and speechless for a few seconds, "her hand, it's . . . it's . . . IT'S GONE!! DOC, WHAT DID YOU DO!!"

All eyes were staring at the doctor. Since the doctor was so sad and shocked himself, he replied with absolutely no confidence in his voice. "We were too late. By the time Amy received her artificial heart, she had so much fluid build up all over her body that infections were invading her entire body. We tried giving her antibiotics to stop the infection, but the infection in her left hand was too severe. There . . . there was no choice but to amputate it. If it wasn't done, then the infections could damage or even kill her. I-I'm sorry, there was no other option."

Rouge was so light-headed that she nearly lost her balance and started to stumble. Knuckles held her in case she faints. 

Tails just stared wide-eyed in total disbelief. He looked at the doctor and just like what Sonic did to Dr. Renoltis, Tails rushed right at him. This time though, Shadow grabbed him to stop him, but this didn't stop Tails from seeing red.

"How could you do this to her!?" Tails tried to wiggle out of Shadows hold, "Amy's like a big sister to me! How . . . how can you do this her? How can you do this to me?" Tails finally stopped struggling and started to break down completely. Shadow loosened his grip, and surprisingly instead of Tails making another attempt to rush at the doctor, he just turned around and buried his face into Shadow's and started crying his eyes out. 

"I . . feel so useless," Tails spoke to himself. He feels that his efforts for helping Amy were completely in vain.

Shadow watched the young fox's reactions and it reminded him of how he felt after losing Maria all those years ago. For once in as long as he could remember, a tear started to form in Shadow's eye.

Sonic was so shocked by what he saw that he was totally oblivious to everything that's happening around him. He gently held onto Amy's left arm and stared at the stump where her left hand used to be. 

"I can't believe all the things that's happened to Amy," Sonic said to himself, "I wonder . . . I wonder if death would be a better than experiencing all of this. Should . . . should I tell them to pull the plug?" He slowly and gently brushed his hand across her cheek. "Amy, I'm sorry. I'm . . I'm so very sorry. I don't care whose fault it was the night of the accident. But since you're the one that's been stuck like this for the past nineteen months, I believe you deserve to hear it from me."

Sonic gave a huge sigh of despair, "just like what Knuckles said, I hate to know what would happen if Amy wakes up. I just can't imagine how she'll feel when she wakes up with a missing a hand."

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Don't worry, there's just one more major problem left, then the story will finally make a turn for the better. But believe me, what just happened here is nothing compared to what happens next. I'm sure you'll know when you read it.


	15. Is Amy Cursed?

Author's Note: If it makes you feel any better, this is the last major life-threatening situation that will be inflicted on Amy. After this, the story will take a slightly different turn.

Chapter 15:Is Amy . . . Cursed?

Dr. Carbana just watched the emotional mess inside Amy's room. He decided to leave them be for the moment and just walked away. He just didn't know what to say at the moment, he's quite shocked himself even though he participated in Amy's amputation.

Later that day, Knuckles and Tails were in a patient's room for a check up. Knuckles' arm was finally removed from the sling. He moved it around to work out the stiffness. The doctors were actually very amazed at his recovery.

"You know," one the doctors spoke, "that's a pretty sturdy arm you've got there. I mean, considering that the gun was right on your shoulder, I'm surprised that you still have an arm!"

After moving his arm in a circle a few times, Knuckles looked at the doctor with a big smirk, "believe me, my body's a lot tougher and sturdier than it looks." He shook hands with the doctor and left the room. A few seconds later, his smirk quickly disappeared and gave a sigh of frustration, "I just wish that Amy could heal just as easily and quickly." 

Next, the doctor checked on Tails' artificial ear. Rouge didn't need a check up since her wing was working perfectly with no complications. Throughout the check up, Tails had a very depressed look on his face. 

"Okay Tails," the doctor asked, "no pain or discomfort from the ear?" Tails didn't answer and the doctor repeated himself. Tails heard him and just gave a simple slow nod.

"All right," the doctor continued, "I guess you don't need check ups anymore. I let me or any other doctors know when you start feeling any discomfort."

Tails nodded and left the room and then spoke to himself, "believe me I'm feeling plenty of pain and discomfort right now, and it's not from my ear. I can't believe I wasted my time at that factory. I used all my mechanical knowledge to help them out and it was for nothing! I could have just stayed here and spend some time with Amy. I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle here." 

He then walked straight towards Amy's room. Although it wasn't visiting hours yet, he really didn't care at all. When Tails wasted him time at the factory, he felt like he had abandoned her, so he wanted to visit her right away to make up for it. 

Over the next few days, some new medications were created based on Amy's physiological and anatomical data. Several new and improved antibiotics were created that were much more potent, but still compatible. Even some new artificial hormones were made to help stabilize her numerous chemical imbalances.

Then one morning, just before visiting hours, Dr. Carbana decided to wake Amy from her long sleep. He injected the new painkiller into Amy just before the sedatives wore out, that way she doesn't wake up in agony. A few minutes later, Amy woke up with a big yawn. Her eyes took a few seconds to focus and the first thing she saw was Dr. Carbana and several assistants next to him.

"Hello Amy," the doctor greeted her, "how are you feeling? Did you have a good sleep?" A couple assistants gave a small chuckle from that question. The doctor quickly put up his hand to silence them.

Amy took a deep breathe, "I-I-I'm fffffiiiinnnne. W-w-w-wwhheeeerrrre's S-S-SSooonnnniiic? (I'm fine. Where's Sonic?)

"I think Sonic and his friends are out at the lobby right now," the doctor replied, "don't worry, I'll go call them personally." 

Just before he left the room, he called his assistants. "I want you to get Amy out of the bed and into a wheelchair, I think she needs a break from that bed. Also, tidy her up a bit." 

At first Amy didn't notice her missing left hand. Since the entire left side of her body is completely numb, she didn't really feel anything unusual. When she did notice a few moments she broke into a huge panic attack. The assistants had to give her oxygen for a few minutes since she was so panicked that she had trouble breathing.

When she calmed down she asked: "W-w-whaaat h-h-haaapennned t-t-tooo m-meeee?" (What happened to me?)

The assistants looked at each other and whispered, "should we tell her anything? Shouldn't we wait for Dr. Carbana before we try to say anything?"

The other assistant replied also whispering, "she already notices her missing hand. Just don't say anything about that heart and kidney ordeal."

When Sonic and his friends entered Amy's room, they saw her sitting in her wheelchair with one of the assistants next to her. They were very surprised to see that she was finally awake, but something seemed very peculiar about her. She didn't have that constant blank face or depressed look that she had since waking from her coma. Instead she had a very upset and frustrated look. Sonic didn't waste any time and he stood by her and decided to give her a serious apology. This would be his third time apologizing, but his first time with her being conscious and able to hear it from his own lips.

When Sonic apologized to her, it seemed that there was no reaction. Amy was just in a daze and she was thinking back over all of her experiences since the accident. She then stared at the stump on her left arm where her hand used to be and a few moments later something happened that greatly surprised Sonic and the others. In almost an instant, all of her pain, suffering, and frustration that she experienced over the past nineteen months built up into an emotion that even Amy herself didn't think was ever possible. 

For the first time, Amy felt pure unbounded hatred towards Sonic! She just leered at Sonic with hateful eyes. She clenched her right fist so hard that her arm started shaking. Even her voice sounded sinister and almost sounded like she was growling! Basically, she almost looks possessed! Sonic, his friends, and even the assistant suddenly became very concerned.

"A-Amy?" Sonic asked in a worried tone, "are all right? What's wrong?"

Amy then spoke more clearly than she usually does, "you, y-you d-diid this t-too ME!" (You, you did this to ME!)

Then she raised her right fist and threw a punch as hard as she could right at Sonic! He easily saw it coming and instinctively moved out of the way. Unfortunately, she threw the punch so hard that she fell right out of her wheelchair! The assistant tried to grab her before she hits the floor, but Sonic sprung forward and grabbed her first. Amy then proceeded to beat him over the head with her only one fist! Surprisingly, her hits weren't very hard and didn't hurt at all. Of course this makes sense, considering how weak and frail she's been.

After a few seconds of draining out her anger, she became very limp. Amy took a deep breath and started sobbing loudly. Sonic looked her face and saw that she was still very frustrated. Strangely when she was crying, tears were only coming out of her right eye! (This sort of shows just how "dead" is the left side of her body.) She then buried her face into his shoulder and continued crying out her frustrations. Sonic then began patting her back, trying to do something to help ease her feelings at the moment. She just couldn't understand or believe how many things have been taken away from her.

After a few minutes, Amy's crying died down and took her face off from Sonic's shoulder, "I-iit's all r-riight S-S-Sonnniiic." (It's all right Sonic.) Despite lashing out at him, she accepted his apology. 

When visiting hours were over and Sonic and his friends were at their apartment, everyone noticed just sitting on the couch alone while staring at a blank television. Shadow walked up to him and noticed that Sonic wasn't didn't look very depressed, instead he was very deep in thought. 

"So what are you thinking about right now?" Shadow sounded slightly concerned and curious, "you're not watching T.V., so you must to be onto something."

Sonic broke from his concentration, "I'm just trying to imagine things in Amy's perspective. Just think about it, she gets in a serious car accident and loses consciousness and then falls into a coma. She wakes up and finds her body completely messed up and many things taken away from her such as talking normally and walking. Then she starts screaming in pain because her painkillers no longer work on her and she's sedated and goes back into a long sleep. She then wakes up and finds her hand missing. If you ask me, I'm pretty sure that she'll have trouble going to sleep again."

"Yeah, I see what you mean," Shadow replied, "she's afraid to go back to sleep because might wake up with something missing again." 

"There's one more thing that bothering me," Sonic blurted out.

"What is it Sonic?" Tails sounded very concerned, in fact they all did.

Sonic noticed that everyone was standing around him. He decided to share his thoughts since he figured that they deserve to know. "During the entire time that Amy has been here, I've seen her show emotions that I didn't even think that she could possibly express. I know that she's been very annoying to me, but one thing I've noticed is that she's always cheerful. She always shows a positive attitude and almost always has a smile on her face."

Sonic then a deep breath and noticed everyone was paying close attention. "Now, it's like she become a totally different person. I've never seen that annoying smile once or even a small hint of her usually cheerful attitude and I don't blame her. I mean, I don't see any way or any reason that she should be like her usual self."

He then covered his mouth with one hand while trying to fight back tears. Despite his best efforts, a single tear started to form in his eye, "I . . . I never thought that I would ever say this but, I would really like to see that cheerful face of hers. I don't care if she becomes annoying again, I'll worry about that when it happens. But until then, I-I'd give anything just to see her happy go lucky attitude and to hear her speak properly so I can hear those annoying but very thoughtful words of hers." A couple of tears started rolling down his face.

Knuckles looked down on the floor for a few seconds. He looked up again at Sonic, "I don't know if you're aware of this, but believe it or not we all feel exactly the same way."

Tails spoke next, "it's just so hard for us to comprehend all the things that have been taken away from her and all the things that she's being so unfairly deprived of."

It took a while for everyone to cope with Amy's amputated left hand. Sonic of course had the most trouble, but felt a little better now that Amy's awake again.

After six long weeks, just as Dr. Carbana predicted, all of the excess fluid in her body was finally gone and she wasn't badly swollen anymore. Some special skin lotion that's normally used on pregnant women was used to remove her numerous stretch marks.

Three months after that, Dr. Yulevski finally completed Amy's cloned heart. Dr. Carbana and several other surgeons removed Amy's temporary artificial heart and implanted her new cloned heart. There were no problems or complications and the heart showed no signs of rejection. All of the doctors breathed a huge sigh of relief. 

"So doc, what are you going to do now," Sonic asked, "what's going to happen now?"

Dr. Carbana replied almost with some enthusiasm, "next, Amy's hormone levels needs to be balanced. Some artificial hormones that were based on her body chemistry are now available. That should fix the problems and she can finally be removed from her I.V. and start eating some real food." 

Things started to return to normal for Amy. Now that her body chemistry and systems were functioning properly, she no longer needed her I.V. or her painkillers. Dr. Carbana decided to give Amy one more week to make sure that there's no complications or allergic reactions from the hormones. After that, she can finally be discharged from the intensive care unit and possibly transferred to physical therapy. Dr. Carbana and most of the other doctors in the trauma center were overjoyed at Amy's progress. 

Everyone believe that Amy will finally pull through, but just four days later something happened that devastated the doctors far worse than ever, especially Dr. Carbana and Dr. Renoltis. About ten minutes before visiting hours, Dr. Carbana was reviewing over a new MRI scan of Amy's body that one of his assistants turned in.

"Huh? Now what is this?" The doctor saw something unusual and suspicious about the scan photo, "when was this taken?" His voice sounded slightly nervous.

"Less than an hour ago," the assistant replied.

He studied the photo again to double check. "Are there any problems with her immune system or any of his her other body systems?"

The assistant was puzzled but answered anyway, "no doctor, everything is stable. Her body chemistry is finally back to normal thanks to those artificial hormones that were created." 

Dr. Carbana was concentrating on the photo so hard that he almost didn't hear what the assistant just said. "Do another scan right now," the doctor said suddenly, his tone becoming uptight, "but this time concentrate on her head. Also, get Amy's scan photos from her first day here." The assistant was confused as to why he suddenly made such a request out of the blue. But he figured that the doctor knew what he's doing, so he followed the order anyways. The doctor then noticed that visiting hours were starting soon and went straight to Amy's room. 

When Sonic and the others arrived at Amy's room, Dr. Carbana was inside standing beside Amy who was in her wheelchair. The doctor greeted them and everyone had very high hopes. This is the first time that anyone felt this good ever since Amy arrived at the hospital. Sonic still didn't feel comfortable since so much has physically changed on her, physically and mentally. But he felt a little better since she would okay.

Just then, the same assistant who took Amy's MRI scan earlier stood at the door. "doctor, I've got the new scan photos."

"It's about time," the doctor thought to himself, "I wonder what took so long." Then he looked at everyone, "if you need me, I'll be at my office." He left the room and walked down the hallway with the assistant.

While they were walking, the assistant decided to explain some things, "sorry it took a while, but here are the photos that you requested. Also, um, the other doctors also noticed something in Amy's head and I guess that's why you made this request. They ran a few tests and studied the photos and they came with a pretty startling conclusion. It's all on that clipboard, you can read it yourself."

"Okay, thanks," the doctor then sent the assistant away. 

As Dr. Carbana stood in his office, he compared the scan photos and read over the conclusion from the tests. A few seconds later, he had a very blank look on his face, but you can still see the shock in his eyes. The clipboard slipped out of his hands and clattered on the floor and started to feel light-headed. He turned and slowly walked towards his desk and plopped in his chair. 

"It's so strange," Dr. Carbana said to himself, "it's like the more we try to save her, the shorter her life span becomes. This doesn't make any sense! Amy's supposed to be discharged from intensive care in only three days, why did this have to happen now!" He started rubbing his temples while pondering some more.

A few minutes later, the doctor went back to Amy's room and noticed that everyone is still there. He called all of them out into the hallway, he didn't want Amy to hear this right now. Everyone was concerned as to why the doctor looked so shocked. He then explained to them hesitantly about what he just found out. "I'm very deeply regretful about saying this but, I'm afraid that Amy isn't going to make it this time."

Everyone just blinked a few times. "Huh? Now what's THAT supposed to mean?"

The doctor sighed in disappointment, I'm afraid that Amy's brain damage is now spreading spontaneously."

At first they didn't believe him and Sonic thought he was joking. But the doctor's face didn't change and they knew now that he's serious and certain about the situation. "I'm sorry but . . . but this isn't I don't think it would be proper to joke about something like this."

"Does this have anything to do with her previous problems?" Shadow asked, trying to get some answers.

"No, her entire body is stable," the doctor replied, "this just came out of nowhere. This must be some kind of delayed reaction from the accident."

"But the accident was more than two years ago!" Knuckles was starting to lose his temper.

"I-Isn't there anything you can do?" Sonic said, trying to stay calm.

The doctor shook his head slowly, "I'm very sorry, but I'm afraid there's nothing that can help."

"Can't you use brain surgery to save her?" Tails pleaded in an almost panicked voice.

The doctor shook his head again, "it's not that simple. Brain surgery is an extremely delicate process. There's absolutely no room for error, we can easily her brain even further or even kill her in the process. Even with our new knowledge of Amy's anatomy, we still have to study her brain much more closely since it's slightly different from a human's. The problem is that this could take some time, a few days most likely."

"Why is this happening now?" Sonic spoke in an almost threatening tone, "what's causing this?"

"I think it's better if I explain this in my office," the doctor explained, "come with me." The Dr. Carbana asked a nurse to watch over Amy. When they arrived at his office, the doctor showed them some pictures of Amy's brain at different times. 

"Here's an MRI photo of Amy's brain on the first day she was admitted here. The light colored areas represent the brain matter." He pointed at a particular spot, "this dark line across her brain is where the its damaged. Now I'm sure that you all remember that long metal shard that impaled through her head, right." 

They all nodded while Shadow winced a little, "that's a pretty big hole in her brain."

The doctor continued, "actually, considering that the metal shard went completely through her head AND through her brain, it's more like a little tunnel going through. What's kind of creepy is the piece of metal didn't impale through cleanly. When it stabbed through her head, it literally shoved a couple small pieces of her brain matter out of her head. One piece was found stuck to the front passengers seat and the other was stuck on the inside roof of the car. If you don't believe me, then I can go to the forensics lab and get the bag that has those pieces. Maybe you can see what a piece of Amy's brain looks like."

They all started to cringe from hearing all that.

After seeing their reactions, the doctor apologized. "Oh! Uh, sorry. I kind of got carried away there."

"How long does she have?" Rouge asked, bracing herself for the answer.

Dr. Carbana could barely make himself say it, "she's has about three weeks left to live."

"That's plenty of time!" Knuckles blurted out and feeling little better, "that's more than enough time to help her."

The doctor continued, "actually, it gets worse. You see she has three weeks left to live, but this is a progressive illness. Since the damage is slowly spreading across her brain, several things will happen first before she expires."

Everyone didn't like the sound of that. "What's going to happen to her?" Shadow asked.

The doctor thought for a moment and spoke in a tense voice, "the closest part of her brain to the damage is used for language and comprehension. First thing that will happen is she will completely lose the ability to communicate. Most likely she will go mute and talking to her would be literally like talking to a brick wall. You can talk to her all you want and she won't even respond, except maybe once in a while she'll give you a confused look."

They just couldn't believe what they were hearing.

"The next thing that will be affected is her hearing. Eventually she'll become completely deaf. If the damage continues to spread, she'll start losing motor control over various parts of her body and eventually become completely paralyzed. In time, she will end up being a mindless vegetable, completely unaware of her surroundings and she may not even remember any of you or anything."

"Stop it! J-Just stop it!" Sonic yelled out, "I've heard enough! Just tell me if there's anything that can be done." 

The doctor became very downcast, "like I said, there's nothing that can save her right now. There only one thing that can be done and you're probably not going to like it."

They all had a bad feeling about this and sort knew where he was getting at.

"We can give her a drug that will put her to sleep and then completely stops her vital signs. Basically, Amy will be put out of her misery. Save her the agony of all of these things before it starts."

Tails suddenly became hysterical, "y-you mean you're going to kill her!? You're . . you're just going to off her just like that!?"

"Tails," Shadow said, trying to get through to him, "believe me I know how you feel. I didn't feel any differently when Maria was taken from me."

"Actually, I can't just do it right away on my own," the doctor explained, "I have to get legal permission from the patient or from their relatives. The problem is that Amy doesn't know about all of this, so we may have to break this to her before her brain becomes too damaged. Right now her intelligence is still intact, but it's sometimes hard to communicate with her. I guess since you're all her closest friends, you may have to make the decision for her."

Sonic, Shadow, Tails, Knuckles, and Rouge all looked at each other with very worried looks. Tails started to feel very nauseous while Knuckles started to feel quite uncomfortable himself. 

Sonic then spoke up, "um, we'll think about it. We'll talk about it amongst ourselves."

The doctor understood and he let them go. Just before they left the office, the doctor explained one more thing to them. "I don't know if it's really necessary to mention this since it's not very relevant right now, but since I know about this, then I think you should know too."

This quickly got their attention, "There is one thing that could help her, but it currently isn't available right now. We could try putting her in suspended animation. This will slow down the spread of the damage, giving us enough time to perform proper brain surgery. The only problem is that this technology is still in experimental stage and isn't due to arrive for at least another four or five years."

They suddenly felt extremely depressed. Even Knuckles and Shadow were starting to break down. Sonic and his friends left the office and the doctor decided to stay there for a while. While they walked back to Amy's room, They started a conversation.

"This is just crazy!" Sonic was almost feeling hysterical, "are these doctors even doing their job? The car accident didn't kill her, but it seems like these doctors are the one's trying to finish her off instead!"

"Sonic, don't be so judgmental," Rouge interrupted, "in case you didn't notice, these doctors have been doing their job nonstop. Just think back on all those situations that threatened Amy's life repeatedly and those doctors managed to help her survive every one of them. Dr. Carbana and Renoltis and all the other doctors, nurses, and assistants have used every once of effort. If they've accomplished all of that, then I'm sure that they will find a way no matter how impossible the situation."

Sonic considered all that she said and started to feel slightly better. Just before they returned to Amy's room, Sonic decided not to go in right now. He felt like getting some fresh air and calm down first. Tails decided to go with him, maybe the fresh air will help him feel better also. Although Tails somewhat doubted that.

Back at Dr. Carbana's office, the doctor was starting feel depressed. Normally he doesn't feel this was about terminal patients since he's had so many before, but this was totally different.

"This just isn't fair," the doctor said to himself while looking at a picture of his deceased wife, "Amy's was so close to leaving this place. "Is . . is Amy . . . cursed? A-am I cursed? Is this hospital cursed? Well you know what? I don't care if this whole world is cursed! I'm not going to give up! I'm not giving in! I believe that there's hope in even the most impossible situation."

He then heard a knock at the door. He called the person in and Dr. Renoltis entered the office.

"I heard about what just happened to Amy," Dr. Renoltis stated. His voice then became very serious and very frustrated, "how much longer do you plan on letting her suffer like this? At first when I took care of Amy, I didn't feel any different from my other patients. But when I saw her screaming in pain several months ago, it just hit me. Amy's been suffering for more than two years right now, that is completely unacceptable!"

Dr. Carbana was starting to feel irritated from the tone in his voice, "what do you mean? The entire time that she's been here she's survived numerous life-threatening problems. We managed to help pull through and even though this new problem seems impossible, I'm not going to give up."

"You see! That's the problem," Renoltis was getting quite agitated, "you don't know when to quit. You can't seem to draw the line between keeping a person alive and keeping person alive just so that they suffer for prolonged periods."

"This is just another setback!" Dr. Carbana was trying to keep his temper, "I will see to it that Amy survives this."

"Urgh, your impossible sometimes!" Renoltis was about to leave but decided to make one more point, "you remember my brother, right? You remember what happened to him, how he was in tremendous agony for eight torturous months? Do you really want to condemn Amy to that same fate? We both know what should be done, but the question is are you willing to go through with it?"

With that, Dr. Renoltis left the office. He felt like slamming the door, but he didn't want to disturb any nearby patients. Dr. Carbana pondered for a few seconds, "I hate to admit it, but everything he said makes perfect sense. I guess there are two ways you can save someone, you can save them from death, or save them from life. Oh man, normally I would just go through with the procedure, but I feel so different this time."

A few minutes later, Dr. Carbana visited the pharmacy and used his security card to enter a special restricted room. As he walked in, he began feeling very nervous. He used his key to open one of the cabinets. When he reached in, his hands began to shake. He gave a big sigh of regret, "I can't believe I'm actually going to have to do this. Though I have to wait for an approval, I don't feel any better. Until then, I'm going to have to prepare this."

A tear started to form in his eye as he pulled out a large jar and stared at the bottle, which read "NEMBUTAL." 

Elsewhere in the trauma center, at about the same time, one of the doctors received a memo on the computer. He read it and almost choked from excitement. He quickly called one of the assistants, "go contact Dr. Carbana! We're just about to receive a new shipment from the factory. I quite sure that he'll be overjoyed when he sees this!"

The assistant and several other doctors looked at the memo and were quite puzzled, "wait a minute. This isn't due to arrive for at least another four years. Why's this arriving so soon."

One of the doctors who also works at the factory saw the memo and made a comment, "ha ha ha, you can thank a certain fox for this."

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Wow, there seems to be a disagreement between some doctors. Also, I'm not entirely positive about this, but just to let you know Nembutal was originally used as some sort of sleeping pill. 

It was later used to perform euthanasia or "mercy killing" on animals and pets. It was later used on certain terminally ill patients as a means of an easy painless death. However, I believe it's still very controversial.


End file.
